The Wayward Cloud

Taipei is short of water, and people drink watermelon juice because it is cheaper than water. In the same city a man works in pornographic films and runs into a woman he knew years ago. Neither tells the other what they do. The film is not interested in sex. It is interested in thirst: it uses the drought as both fact and metaphor and draws a city in which touching has become impossible. The link between watermelon, liquid and the body runs through the whole film. The form splits in a way that shocks: long, silent, nearly motionless scenes interrupted by colourful costumed musical numbers in which the characters lip-sync to old Chinese songs. The film continues with the characters of Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? It screened in Berlin in 2005 and took three prizes: the Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution for the screenplay, the Alfred Bauer Prize and the FIPRESCI award. At the press screening some people walked out and others laughed out loud. Lee Kang-sheng and Chen Shiang-chyi star. Who it is for: viewers who know Tsai's cinema and enjoy provocative formal experiments. Who it is not for: almost everyone. The final scene is deliberately unbearable and the film covers nothing in its sexual content.