Days

Two men in Bangkok. One is middle-aged, has neck pain and is looking for treatment. The other is a migrant from Laos who cooks in a small room, chops vegetables and works as a masseur. They meet in a hotel room. The massage takes a long time and the camera never cuts, then they eat together and part. The older man leaves him a small music box. The film is almost entirely silent and carries no subtitles. That is not an omission but a declared choice: the credits state that the film is deliberately unsubtitled. What the few spoken sentences say does not matter; what matters is how long two bodies spend in the same room. Tsai Ming-liang directed, with Lee Kang-sheng and Anong Houngheuangsy. Lee's neck pain is real and has been entering Tsai's films for years. It screened in competition for the Golden Bear at the 70th Berlin Film Festival on 27 February 2020 and won the jury Teddy Award. Who it is for: anyone who knows extreme slow cinema and Tsai's work. Who it is not for: almost everyone. Scenes run for minutes, there is next to no plot, and the film asks nothing of the viewer but patience.