Stray Dogs

An alcoholic single father and his two children flit through the margins of contemporary Taipei in Tsai Ming-liang’s remarkable work of social critique, long-take experimentalism, and asphalt surrealism, in which “every sequence exerts an almost telepathic grip” (The Telegraph). The father (Lee Kang-sheng) impassively works as a human sign holder through increasingly powerful rainstorms, while the kids wander about an urban landscape that grows stranger and more heartbreaking by the moment. Here homelessness isn’t just a social issue, but a psychic wound. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, Stray Dogs “offers images that will stick in your mind even longer than they stay on the screen” (NPR).