A Private War
The Favourite
Crazy Rich Asians
Homecoming
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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (37) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (29) | Rotten (8) | DVD (1)
This elegiac 2003 comedy, by the Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang, is a requiem for a movie theatre.
A weird, funny, melancholy tribute to movies and movie-going, an opus for film geeks that rang my personal bell.
Idiosyncratic, oddball movie that is both funny and moody.
This is one of the most gorgeous and maturely composed movies you'll see this year.
Tsai is hugely popular with film critics, I believe, in part because film critics actually have something to do while watching his films. While the girl is limping down the hallway, we can take notes. Regular theatergoers? They can only watch helplessly.
The real star of the movie is the doomed movie house itself, and the dominant subtext is the emotional transaction between the viewer and his (or her) more vividly vicarious adventures projected on-screen.
What's the matter with these people? Why are they such a bunch of zombies?
Long, boring shots. Reallllly long boring shots. Woman walks up stairs, woman walks down stairs. The end. Bleh.
Plays as a meditation on the deep feelings felt by the viewer and the filmmaker towards the movie experience.
It's not a sentimental ode to the cinema like "Cinema Paradiso." It's more like "Cinema Purgatorio."
Everywhere, Tsai [Ming-Liang] lingers long enough to risk driving his audience to distraction, and I am afraid I succumbed early.
A marvelously subtle variation on the theme of the haunted house.
A haunting, gorgeous and nearly-silent tribute to the experience of cinema-going that perfectly combines melancholy and deadpan humor, with a deliberate pacing that may prove too slow to casual moviegoers as it puts sometimes a good deal of emphasis on still moments.
Super Reviewer
the apex of tsai's cinema, a pure distillation of movie love, both profound and simple. there are only 5 or 6 lines of dialogue in the film. you've been warned
Literally plodding... but entrancing take on filmgoing as both communal act and private quest for validation. Movie theater as bathouse. Total art film - I see some lonely Antonioni in the architecture and some funny Tati in the setups and timing. Oh, and ghosts - lots of ghosts. My first taste of Tsai.
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