Vive l'amour (aka "Aiquing
Wansui") was produced in 1994 in Taiwan and released in the United
States in 1996. It is the second film (Rebels of the Neon God,
1992, the first) from director Tsai Ming-liang.
Vive l'amour sets its sights on two men, one woman and one
apartment existing in Taipei, Taiwan. The apartment sits empty but
minimally furnished as a property for sale by the woman's (May Lin/
Kuei-Mei Yang) real estate company. One young man, (Hsiao- kang/Kang-sheng
Lee), in the film's first shot, steals an apartment key left in the lock
and proceeds to move in. The second, (Ah-jung/ Chao-jung Chen) steals a
key from the woman after a night of wordless sex (in the room she utilizes
for such activities) and eventually moves in as well (unbeknownst, at
first, to the other male). Hsiao-kang spends his time smoking, peddling
crematorium urns, healing his slashed wrist, bathing, and dressing up.
Ah-jung spends his time smoking, reading porn, peddling clothing and
drinking Budweisers. May Lin spends her time smoking, peddling empty homes
and apartments and wandering the streets. They all spend their time
passing time.
For Hsiao-kang, isolation and boredom breeds a deviant and narcissistic
self-examination. In his first scenes he is shown slashing his wrist with
a pocket knife. We are given these suicidal tendencies before anything
else, and this decision underlies all that the young man does, as we are
constantly reminded of his fragility. Ah-jung and May Lin are less inward,
but no less lonely. We first witness them in the same shot, random finders
of one another (or have they gone through this rite before?) in a mall
food court. What follows is animal-like, ritualized preying with May Lin
leading her partner to the apartment. At no point in the film do these two
ever utter a word towards one another, theirs is a purely primitive and
physical attraction void of any emotional pulse. If all of this sounds
like static non-progression, it is; if it sounds difficult to watch, it
is; if it sounds boring, it may be, but it is not without (an
uncomfortable) payoff.
Everything that director Tsai Ming-liang offers in Vive l'amour
is drowned in bleak isolation: the empty spaces, unresponsive and
self-absorbed people and unrelenting silence (there is not one note of a
musical soundtrack). He is so consistent with his vision that the film
becomes not about isolated and lonely characters, but about isolation and
loneliness itself. The cinema fully supports its themes. The camera keeps
an objective, level and static distance from its subjects, sitting on
formal compositions for noticeably long periods of time.
The audience, too, is kept at a chilling distance. We never see the
actual sex-making (in its two screen instances), the soundtrack supplies
the grunts and moans. During the first, the camera sits outside of the
bedroom door, during the second, it is fixated on Hsiao-kang hiding under
the bed, his silence having been interrupted by the couples sudden need to
fuck. Additionally, in a decision furthering detachment, during all phone
conversations (which comprise over half of the film's dialogue) we are
given only one side of the conversation. Throughout, director Tsai Ming-
liang makes all attempts to reduce point of view and depict singularity
and separation in both subject and audience. He has, without a doubt,
disaffected many viewers; but he deserves commendation for his unyielding
vision. His bifunctional distancing makes Vive l'amour the most
purely effective and deeply felt journey into loneliness and alienation in
memory. The film world (specifically Hollywood) would be a much more vital
one if all directors followed Tsai Ming-liang's lead.
Many films previous have held urban alienation as a theme, but it is a
difficult subject to investigate and a more difficult one to sell;
therefore these films are rare, especially in American cinema. Hollywood's
deepest dive into the subject came in the hey day of film noir which often
depicted characters being beaten down by the filth, gloom,
industrialization and crime of large cities. These characters became
slaves to the evil urbanity, cultivating deep cynicism and immorality.
This attitude was commonly revealed (given an outlet) through any number
of deceitful murder narratives. Vive l'amour's agenda is different,
it offers no reasons for its lost individuals as it depicts (observes)
strictly isolated people, exhibiting, again, not the result of isolation
(i.e. noir's selfish schemers) but the isolation itself.
Vive l'amour relates mostly, then, in subject and style to much
of the work of Michelangelo Antonioni (specifically L'eclisse and
L' avventura). He employs a similar detached, cold and
observational camera, presenting his characters lost and unable to relate
in and to the sterility of Modernism and the modern Italy. Antonioni's
cinema, though specific to the contemporary Italian experience, can be
said to depict universal issues of its time (i.e. L'eclisse's
nuclear threat). Similarly, though obviously wholly Taiwanese, Vive
l'amour (by going beyond theme) hits home and is more accessible
because of its incessant character observation and the manner in which it
patiently forces the audience to watch, participate and inevitably feel.
In this way, ironically, it is a very human film.
This method is no better exemplified than in the films final ten
minutes, comprised of maybe four shots (Vive l'amour's final
sequence, more so than any previous section of the film, requires a
difficult patience). The camera follows May Lin as she walks from the
apartment (on the morning following her second session with Ah-jung)
through what appears to be a large park under construction (depicted on
screen as a barren landscape of mud and gray). She arrives at her
[destination?], a bench amongst a series of rows, and sits down far from a
man engrossed in his newspaper. Cut then to a close up of May Lin, and
with all of the film's weight finally taking its toll, her only option,
her only means of expression, is to spew tears. This final image is the
film's silent exclamation point, leaving a profound mark on all who have
bared the pressure of sitting through it.