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Sunday, Jul 15, 2007
7:05pm
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
Several nocturnal wanderers search for connection in a crumbling Kuala Lumpur in Tsai Ming-liang's newest film, which lovingly transfers his cinematic obsessions (loneliness and unrequited love, comically awkward sex, environmental disasters, pop songs) from Taipei to Malaysia, his birthplace. Tsai's muse Lee Kang-sheng plays a dual role, both characters doomed (or blessed) to be fondled and manipulated by others. Homeless Man (Lee) is beaten by thugs, then nursed to health by Rawang (Norman Bin Atun), a caring immigrant. Comatose Man (Lee again) is, well, comatose, nursed by his spectacularly over-attentive mother and her waitress coworker Chyi (Chen Siang-chyi). Through a dust-ridden cityscape of health panics and collapsing new buildings, our disconnected protagonists drift along in their restless nocturnes, tired of sleeping alone. Befitting a project commissioned by the New Crowned Hope festival, a tribute to Mozart, this fable disregards dialogue entirely, communicating instead through a rich urban symphony of radio sounds, television chatter, leaking water, and desperate silence.
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