Millennium Mambo

Hou Hsiao-hsien's film set in Taipei, narrated from the future: Vicky is describing what happened in 2001 from ten years later. She works in nightclubs. Her relationship with Hao-hao will not end; he is jealous, out of work and always going through her things. Each time she tries to leave, and each time she goes back when the money she saved runs out. That is the film's cycle. The narrative moves through place rather than plot: corridors, neon, cigarette smoke, electronic music and close-ups. Mark Lee Ping-bing shot it, and the film is largely remembered for his light. In one section Vicky goes to Yubari in Japan, and that short passage in the snow is the opposite of everything else: quiet, open and cold. Shu Qi plays Vicky. It competed at Cannes in 2001 and took a technical prize. An important work for anyone who likes cinema built on atmosphere and Asian city films of the early 2000s. For a viewer wanting story it is deliberately circular; Vicky arrives nowhere, and that is the argument.