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Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Bu San) Taiwan
As rain buckets down outside a cavernous cinema, inside a screening of the 1966 classic Dragon Inn heralds the closure of this run-down movie palace. The audience consists of a handful of patrons; a Japanese tourist finds solace from the rain, walks the corridors and slowly realises he has wandered into a gay beat, while two old men, with tears in their eyes, rapturously stare at the screen. The young, disabled usher decides to reveal her love to the enigmatic projectionist on this last, fateful evening. He is not in the projection room, so she goes in search of her unrequited love, limping around the eerie spaces of the building.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn is an austere and melancholic homage to cinema and cinema-going. Focusing on his usual themes of alienation, emotional repression and the tormenting anxiety of communication and employing his idiosyncratic, languid visual style, Tsai Ming-liang's new film is poignant and simply exquisite.
'Goodbye, Dragon Inn has a quiet, cumulative magic' its simple, meticulously composed frames are full of mystery and feeling; it's an action movie that stands perfectly still.' -The New York Times
D/S Tsai Ming-liang P Liang Hung Chih WS Home Green Films L Mandarin w/English subtitles TD 35mm/Col/2003/82mins
Tsai Ming-liang was born in Malaysia in 1957. Films include: Rebels of the Neon God (1992), The Hole (MIFF 1999), What Time is it There' (MIFF 2002).