Your Face

Tsai Ming-liang's film consists of thirteen faces. The camera sits down in front of each one and looks for a long time; some talk, some stay silent, some doze off. There is no story told, no event, almost no editing. The faces belong mostly to old and mostly unrecognised people, among them Lee Kang-sheng, the actor the director has worked with throughout his career. The film tests how long you can look at a face and what surfaces as that time stretches: a wrinkle, a tic, a memory, boredom. Ryuichi Sakamoto's music enters between them. It is built more like a gallery piece than a film, and watched patiently the portrait itself becomes the event.