Who's in It: Lee Kang-Sheng, Chen Shiang-Chyi, Norman Atun
The Basics: I think this may be the first movie I've ever seen where a mattress is one of the main characters. I'm not making that up. It's about a homeless man who gets beaten up and the young gay guy who takes him in to nurse him back to health on a grimy mattress he found between two dumpsters. Meanwhile, the homeless guy falls for a local waitress instead of the gay guy he owes his life to, and the gross mattress becomes an unwitting pawn (not that mattresses have wits, but you get my meaning) in the love triangle. And it's the most unsexually intimate, sad, hopeful and life-affirming movie I've seen all year.
What's the Deal? Director Tsai Ming-Liang is one of my very favorite directors. His favorite technique involves long, long, looooooong shots and a static camera that doesn't pan around the scene, go close up on anyone's face, wiggle, jump, pull back, sweep or otherwise give away one inch of his opinion about where you should look and what you should be concentrating on. You have to do the work. He even ended his 1994 movie Vive l'Amour with a six-minute long shot of a woman crying. Do you know how long six minutes lasts in a movie? A lot, that's how much. It's hardly ever done. Anyway, his films demand your total engagement. You'll leave wondering if you even know how to watch movies anymore.
About the Main Actor: Lee has been the lead in every one of Tsai's movies, often playing a character with the same name from film to film, Hsiao-Kang. In this film he plays two characters, a comatose man being cared for by the waitress and also the homeless man the waitress falls in love with.
Best Sex Scene of '07 So Far: When Hsiao-Kang and the waitress finally try to attempt an awkward sexual encounter, there's such awful smog happening in the city that they choke and cough their way through the very brief, unsatisfying bump-up. That they're both wearing makeshift gas masks makes it even weirder and more, um, funny.
Not a Spoiler Really, But … The final scene (and maybe the entire movie) is dreamlike. And I think I have a good idea about what that last shot means. I just don't want to give it away. Anyone who wants to talk about it can leave me a comment here. I'm open to discussing it. But if you're just one of those haters who wants to tell me how much I suck for not liking Shrek the Third or whatever, then I'll just flag you as spam.