A very arbitrary comparison, made strictly on the basis of seeing them in the same slot at the same cinema a week apart, but I liked this a lot more than Uncle Boonmee. That film is quite challenging; Vive L’Amour is deeply layered and has a very distinct and well-articulated visual style, but it felt easier for me to get a handle on what’s going on. The themes and the narrative are just so perfectly unified. The final (two) sequences really brought it all together: the sexual awakening and subsequent experience of intimacy on the part of the two male characters—and the complete absence of intimacy experienced by the female character. She walks alongside a bulldozed mudpit of a park and has a breakdown after her one night stand, and after a movie spent scarfing down food standing up and not talking to anyone. At the same time, the depressed guy who, when he is offered a ride anywhere he wants, chooses to go on a guided tour of a funeral parlour, is able to realize some form of awakening of identity via the female lead and leather jacket guy’s heterosexual dynamic. And it all takes place in the liminal space of a squat, where the irresolute nature of the setting allows everyone to realize their identity. It’s just a little drama; yes, I understand that it has greater social significance given the production context (and so few producers on this, too)—but I am just a sucker for a tight unity of theme and narrative.
It’s especially remarkable how Ming-liang achieves this unity through such spare means. At parts I was reminded of a Monsieur Hulot film, just because of how funny the film is, yet with barely any dialogue. It’s a very funny film and had the salle snorting, but I must admit that I took a bit of perverse pleasure when one scene moved from a comedic set-up to something quite a bit more uncomfortable. Relative to Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), the only other film I’ve seen from this guy, Vive L’Amour might as well be The Bourne Identity; despite being significantly more palatable, it’s nice to see his directorial style in an early, “commercial” form, before he settled into a market that is barely even part of the film industry. As I recall, he has begun to market his films to the artworld, rather than the cinema world.
Final thing to note on this is how jarringly AMERICANIZED the setting is. Blue jeans, leather jackets, Budweiser, Estee Lauder, etc etc. They’re speaking Mandarin, but this ain’t China.