Boo: premised on illusion and promising endless reanimation, cinema is often called the ghostliest of mediums, haunted by phantoms since its beginnings
Movies need not be “about” much in terms of plot, for they have plenty of other options. An orientation toward containing, addressing, or expressing something.
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Tsai Ming-liang, more than any other contemporary director, understands water. Dripping, pooling, cascading from the skies, hurtling curbside down every street, measuring time as surely as a clock or the celluloid pulled through a projector does. Taipei, Taiwanâs Fu-Ho Grand theater is a shelter from the downpour in the way that humanity has always sought a dry place to just hang out and be dry in â but weâve complicated the scenario with our art and obtrusive instincts and with candies and corn and, because this is a film from the Aughts, cigarettes.
Since making movies involves illusion and sleight of hand so that nothing registers beyond the frame, showing movies requires similar rituals, though theyâre not nearly as glamorous. For a poetic meditation on the nature of cinema and the theatrical experience, Tsaiâs 2003 film