Tsai Ming-liang's Where: A Reunion in a Dream

Tsai Ming-liang's Where: A Reunion in a Dream

By MrGeckoBiHu(壁虎先生)
 (This review was originally published in the 62nd issue of Taipei Documentary Filmmakers' Union Newsletters(紀工報) on February 7, 2024)

(This English version of the article you’re now reading is translated by myself, on February 2, 2025)

Before discussing Tsai Ming-liang's new work Where (2022), it’s hard not to first reveal that I think Where is secretly a fiction film. However, not only do I not mind its nomination for the Best Documentary Feature at the Golden Horse Awards, I also believe that this is ultimately not very important. What I mean is that the Golden Horse Awards and the categorization of a film’s genres exist separately, outside of this film, if not all films’ existence. I will also mention later how Where can also be entirely read as a documentary in the most conservative sense. So maybe I should put it this way, that the most moving reading of this film for me, is when it’s interpreted as a fiction, and there’s nothing wrong about the Golden Horse Awards considering it as a documentary. In fact, I don’t feel like it affects my legitimacy to comment on such a film in the Taipei Documentary Filmmakers' Union Newsletters at all, even if I consider it as a fiction or write about a reading that reads it as a fiction in this article. My subject is, after all, a film “that’s nominated for the Best Documentary Feature at the Golden Horse Awards.” On the contrary, it actually becomes meaningful for this very reason. I want to make this point clear at the start.

Next, I would like to summarize my general understanding of the background of the “Walker” series: In 2011, Tsai Ming-liang directed a stage play Only You (which I didn’t have the chance to see), in which choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung devised a movement for Lee Kang-sheng to walk across the stage at a very slow pace. This deeply moved Tsai Ming-liang, and this became the prototype of the “Walker.”[1] In 2012, Tsai Ming-liang designed the image of Xuanzang in a red robe for Lee Kang-sheng, and let him walk at an extremely slow pace, hands sustaining the lotus gesture, bowing his head, as he walked in various locations. That year, he directed four short films on this theme all at once. Among these four films from 2012, the first seems to be No Form (2012), but the only one I have had the opportunity to see is Walker, which is a segment in the four-part feature film Beautiful 2012 (2012) commissioned by the Hong Kong International Film Festival. This seems to be the second film piece in the series. (In Walker, Lee Kang-sheng slowly struggles through the streets of Hong Kong from daylight till the night falls, but there is one aspect that differs from other works in the series: a bag of takeout food hung on one of Xuanzang’s hand and a hamburger was held by the other, and the film ends with Lee Kang-sheng slowly starting to eat the hamburger.)

In 2014, Tsai Ming-liang's stage play Xuanzang premiered at the Zhongshan Hall in Taipei. I had the chance to see this play, and besides Lee Kang-sheng’s return on stage as Xuanzang, another new element was that during the play, artist Kao Jun-Honn drew a series of long lines and spiders on the huge white paper where Xuanzang was walking on. This element later reappeared in Where, with Anong Houngheuangsy, a Laotian actor discovered by Tsai Ming-liang in his feature film Days (2020), gradually drawing long lines on the white paper instead of Kao Jun-Honn. Over the years, Tsai Ming-liang has continued to create films in the "Walker” series. What I have seen includes Journey to the West (2014), a feature length piece filmed in Marseille and a short titled No No Sleep (2015) filmed in Tokyo.

Tsai Ming-liang mentioned in a recent post-screening Q&A session that now most of the time its "money comes to find him” when it comes to creation, many of his works, especially the filming of the “Walker” series, should also be understood from this perspective. In November 2022, the Centre Pompidou in France held a retrospective exhibition called "A Quest," for which Where, the ninth film of the "Walker” series, was made. This is not Tsai Ming-liang's first collaboration with an art museum; in addition to the more well-known Face (2009), which was commissioned by the Louvre as a collection film, he also shot a short film about the Taiwanese painter Tan Teng-pho's famous posthumous photo(Tan Teng-pho was killed during the aftermath of the “February 28 Incident” in 1947) titled Transformation (2012) for the “MoNTUE Special Opening” Exhibition held by MoNTUE(Museum of National Taipei University of Education) in 2012. In recent years, Tsai Ming-liang has repeatedly collaborated with art museums on various exhibitions under the concept of “bringing cinema into the museum,” such as the "Stray Dogs at the Museum - Tsai Ming Liang Solo Exhibition" (2014) , "No No Sleep - Tsai Ming-liang Solo Exhibition" (2016) and the recent “Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days” (2023), which were all collaborations with MoNTUE. The feature length film titled Sand (2018) in the "Walker" series is also a piece presented alongside the “Walker: Tsai Ming-Liang” (2018) exhibition held at Zhuangwei Dune Visitor Center at Yilan County, commissioned by architect Huang Sheng-Yuan.

Watching Where, It’s hard not to first recall that Tsai Ming-liang is a shot-composition and rhythm genius. In one shot on the Paris streets, we have to wait for the foreground car to drive away before we realize it’s not an establishing shot. Xuanzang is already inside the left side of the frame. In another scenery shot, we first see a passerby suddenly stop in doubt, and then we gradually see Xuanzang’s nose and red robe slowly enter the frame from the right side. Thus, not only does Tsai Ming-liang create dramatic tension between Xuanzang and the fast-pacing pedestrians, but at times even the language of cinema itself, using our habitual expectations of editing and cinematic language: when we see a “scenery shot,” our mind creates a certain expectation and custom to rhythm —a relaxation or anticipation for the next cut. However, when we discover that the “cut” doesn’t come, and it’s actually “waiting for” Xuanzang to “begin to” enter the frame, he becomes an element that “breaks” this expectation, and in such a shot with such exceptionally long “entering process,” it almost seems like a silent and prolonged thunder. This happens because the nature of the shot itself changes when Xuanzang enters the frame. This is of profound significance, as the language itself transforms from an  “scenery shot” or “transition” into a “third-person shot”.[3] Such a shot has a different tone than the one in which Xuanzang is already in the frame from the start. And another example is when Xuanzang’s presence acts as a matching point of a “match cut,” cutting from a limited street view to a wide shot outside the Centre Pompidou. This is how Tsai Ming-liang operates, making subtle yet substantial adjustments between shots to orchestrate the rhythm and breathing of the film itself.

Next is Anong, which marks the biggest difference between Where and other works in the "Walker" series. The film begins with Anong, capturing him taking a shower in the bathroom, applying green paste to his face in front of the mirror before cutting to Xuanzang. We later see Anong sitting on a Paris street, eating or looking around, with a sense of confusion in his eyes compared to the dancing crowd in the background. Days depicts the encounter between Lee Kang-sheng and Anong amidst illness and hardship, as they support each other and slowly try to heal themselves in the scenery. We can certainly say that Days is the reason Where features Anong, but it’s far more complex than that.

This is not the first time that the "Walker" series include a second character; Denis Lavant appears in Journey to the West, but his relationship with Xuanzang is more of an unrelated presence mimicking Xuanzang's actions. A closer example might be Masanobu Ando in No No Sleep, where there’s a segment showing Ando bathing in a public bath, followed by an extreme close-up of Xuanzang in the bath, seemingly having taken off his robe for the first time. Ando then sits beside him in the bath, his gaze conveying some instability, while Xuanzang pays him no special attention. The two are then intercut sleeping alone in different sauna rooms, with Ando keeps turning over while Xuanzang sleeps soundly. Until the end, they remain parallel existences, each observed separately.

In this sense, Anong's presence here is fundamentally different from the previous “guest appearances.” His opening creates a dual narrative, a “suspense,” where the tension between them comes not just from their differences (a monk and a worldly person) but from how they will “meet” (as Anong’s bewildered eyes seem to summon this encounter). On the streets of Paris? No. Xuanzang walks through the bustling streets, passing the Centre Pompidou, and then, in a shot resembling a narrative film, Tsai Ming-liang uses a low angle shot to film Xuanzang stepping out of a large red freight elevator. From this moment, an increasing sense of “suspense” begins to fill the air, as if it is almost telling us that Xuanzang is now having a destination that “we’re about to see” (this is completely different from other shots on the streets within which his wondering destination is seemingly infinitely far away—we hardly care where he is going. He is just walking), even to the point of suspending our breath. Xuanzang walks past Robert Delaunay's painting La ville de Paris in the exhibition hall (which will hold special significance). Just before the climax, there is a wonderfully unexpected shot of Anong humming a song on the roadside, which later reveals itself to be quite dubious in retrospect.

Next comes a series of the most intense shots in Where: the huge white paper from the Xuanzang stage play appears in an empty room in the Centre Pompidou, where we see Anong holding a black charcoal pencil, slowly drawing a jagged line on the paper with  an uninterrupted continuous strokes. As more and more edits indicating more and more lines were drawn, the sound of the charcoal rubbing against the paper begins to sound overwhelmingly enormous, like numerous fuses being lit. Then comes one of the most powerful shots in the film: the camera is positioned low onto the paper, with Anong continuously drawing out-of-frame, while in-focus, Xuanzang’s barefoot close up slowly steps into the frame. We only see his feet, but we clearly know that Xuanzang has arrived, and we simultaneously notice that Tsai Ming-liang has subtly layered increasingly deep bass beats into the soundtrack. As the drumming sound effect grows louder, the two get closer, and we begin to feel dizzy as if due to the sudden rapid change in our ear pressure and feeling as if our heartbeat breath has been suddenly suspended, as if a great event is about to unfold.

I think the most fitting contrast to this shot of Xuanzang's feet, is the emerging of the fin of the great white shark suddenly rising from the ocean surface in Jaws (but who is the predator here?). Alternatively, it can be likened to the sound of spurred cowboy boots landing in a Western town when we’re about to witness a duel. But more astonishing is how Xuanzang's feet and the lines create some intense chemical reaction: the jagged charcoal lines suddenly seem to symbolically map out the paths that Xuanzang has walked. Henceforth in this scene, who exactly is Anong, the one who’s drawing these lines? Does he know everything about Xuanzang (like a villain in a superhero movie quietly monitoring the hero)? Is he waiting for him? Is he secretly capturing Xuanzang in a white web (like the spider in the stage play)? Then in a wide overhead shot, we see Anong, and Xuanzang, who walks on the white paper already filled with jagged lines, crossing paths, silently “confronting without acknowledging” each other, without colliding, like a moment of Tai Chi that suspends time, as if an eternity occurs in a flash of a lighting strike, as if revealing some kind of greater truth about the world, a moment that exists outside of worldly concerns.

Then, unexpectedly, Tsai Ming-liang cuts to a close-up of Anong sleeping soundly in a room, snoring as if reawakening the world, and we realize that he still has the green makeup from the beginning of the film on his face.

Thus, we can hardly avoid the thought that everything we just experienced might be a dream. Tsai Ming-liang almost makes no attempt to conceal this: returning to Xuanzang on the street, he walks past Antoniucci Volti's bronze statue Harmonie, portraying a woman sleeping on her stomach. Two passersby here mischiefly provoke Xuanzang.

However they met again, later on the streets of Paris. This shot is almost magical: we see Xuanzang walking slowly, shot facing him, almost submerged by the crowds coming and going around him. Then, Anong, dressed casually and wearing headphones with long wires, walks past Xuanzang amidst the passersby and glances at him briefly before exiting the frame. When I first saw this film I hardly noticed this detail. But after a while, he returned, leaning against a guardrail, quietly watching Xuanzang from the side. The camera then cuts to Anong's front, with Xuanzang out of focus in the foreground passing over Anong’s face. In Anong’s eyes, there seems to be a moment of awakening, as if he has recalled a past life, with his large eyes flickering with a sense of realization, sorrow, love, and a silent yelling, like a sigh.

Then, in what may be the most moving shot in the "Walker" series, Tsai Ming-liang cuts to the back of Xuanzang, the wide angle capturing him as he steps slowly into the throng of people coming toward him, with the outline of the sun illuminating Xuanzang and the bustling pedestrians. I was deeply shaken by this shot when I saw the film for the second time. As if It’s bidding farewell to the walker, parting from an encounter that may have never truly happened. Throughout the entire "Walker" series, we have never felt such a strong sense of intimate, passionate, and romantic gazes through the eyes of someone watching him. This eager gaze, and the agent of that gaze appearing in the frame, is something that never appears in the previous "Walker" installments (let alone a POV shot).

Thus, in the final shot, through the overlapping of the dual gazes (Anong from the previous shot / Tsai Ming-liang behind the camera), the film seems to open itself up, as if this shot is Xuanzang's response to Anong, who cannot hold onto him. We are thus able to trace back through this openness, seemingly directed toward Tsai Ming-liang, but also toward the audience gazing at Xuanzang, as we all find ourselves in Anong’s position. This is the gift that Tsai Ming-liang gives us, and through Anong’s presence, he privately filmed himself.[4]

As usual, Tsai Ming-liang finds an old song that is most suitable as the footnote for his film, Nancy Yao Lee's "Reunion."

"Where in life do we not meet? Meeting like in a dream.
You forgot me in another dream, yet tonight we meet again.

Meeting again and again, could it be a dream within a dream?
What once was considered a dream, life itself is but a dream."

Xuanzang forgets Anong, and Anong could not hold on to him, but Anong remembers (because he is watching Xuanzang). But does Xuanzang silently remember? Tsai Ming-liang suddenly realizes that Lee Kang-Sheng will ultimately be another person, not knowing if Lee knows that he knows (but Tsai knows and films Lee this way)? This makes Xuanzang walking through La ville de Paris[5] serves as a subtle hint of a dream, and at the same time creating a meta-message: because Where is precisely about Xuanzang walks through the real city of Paris, hence the “dream” in the film can truly be said to be a dream within a dream. However, what’s outside the theater is merely another dream, and you might or might not remember me after waking up. Thus, Xuanzang is not only walking within it but also outside of it. Will he forget us? Or will he silently remember?

I feel like there is even a hidden dual interpretation here: that is, because Anong “lost” his battle against Xuanzang, his encounter with Xuanzang was ultimately determined to be a dream, which is why Anong wakes up (what wakes up is the dream. Xuanzang walks outside the world—Paris/the reality, while Anong wants to pull him into reality but fails), so in the end, what Anong recalls is a parallel disconnected reality; the other side of the dual reading is that this is the first time Anong sees Xuanzang, and in this moment, he experiences a future that is destined to not have happened but only could as a dream. The segment, edited between Anong applying makeup and sleeping, thus becomes a flash forward that’s ultimately cancelled. This is also why this final gaze can be so full of tension because it is what the world ultimately leaves us (and then we wake up).

Thus, we can seemingly simplify this film into one sentence: you see something beautiful, you know this beautiful thing will not exist forever, and then you cry.

In this sense, Where is even more moving to me than Days; it is more intimate, more open, more concise, and more sincere. Its creator faces it directly, singing praises while shedding tears.

So, why do I say that whether it is a documentary is actually not that important. “I think the films in the "Walker" series are not about the concept of acting; they are more like performance (art), a form of sadhana.” [6] Lee Kang-Sheng performs in the streets of Paris, and the director films him; the Pompidou invites the director to make a video art, and the director films both the video and the daily life of the actors, editing them together, and it becomes a documentary (the only truly symbolic acting may be Anong standing next to the walker watching him, but this is very ordinary in a documentary). Only Where uses the editing style of a narrative film to sneak in a narrative, but why can't it be both, and even more?

“...I actually feel that it wasn't filmed that well; it should be very simple... like a painter, the same thing, I feel it wasn't painted well enough, so I will paint it again..." [7]

In a post-screening Q&A at MoNTUE, Tsai Ming-liang casually mentioned Where and the latest work in the "Walker" series, Abiding Nowhere, which has just been selected for the “Special Screenings” section of the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. During the post-screening discussion of Where, Tsai couldn't help but explain, “I actually think Anong is very much like The Spider Demonesses from Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West. I think there is still some influence there, as someone who has a destined encounter with Xuanzang. Just like in No No Sleep, I actually feel like it resembles the White Horse(through Masanobu Ando’s character). In my heart, I think of this projection. Of course, I could keep it to myself for a lifetime.” I 30% hoped that Tsai did not spill it directly, and am 70% grateful for having heard him say it. I believe Where is a masterpiece.

[1] “…It turns out that this lifetime was just meant for me to see you perform this action,” Tsai Ming-liang even once put it. From Chen Yijun's "Tsai Ming-liang's Slow March Towards 'Pure Imagery'," Journal of National Taiwan College of Arts, Issue 107 (December 2020).

[2] “Tsai Ming-liang's Days,” Q&A session after the screening of Transformation.

[3] A common example of this is Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, which contains a shot overlooking a burning gas station; it was originally an establishing shot but became a subjective shot after the flock of birds entered the frame. Slavoj Žižek is fond of mentioning this example.

[4] This also somewhat resonates with the short film Where Do You Stand, Tsai Ming-liang? (2022), commissioned by the Pompidou Center, which is a record of his daily life. In this short film, Tsai Ming-liang filmed cats, the ruins next to his house filled with water puddles, empty chairs inside, his own paintings (one depicting a chair from a scene in Days), and finally asked Anong to film himself. “Tsai Ming-liang's Days” also exhibited this work.

[5] Here’s an interesting story: Tsai Ming-liang mentioned in an interview that he actually really likes Joan Miró, but when it came to needing to pay royalties for the footage of paintings, he later found that the royalties would be very expensive. So, the shot of Miró's work that he filmed was ultimately not used. I casually flipped through a random Miró painting in the Pompidou and came across Bleu triptych, particularly Bleu II, and gasped. I thought about how the red lines connect a series of black dots against a whole canvas of blue. Isn’t that just Xuanzang? (Of course, we don’t actually know which Miró work Tsai Ming-liang was referring to).

[6] Same as Note 5.

[7] Same as Note 2.