Tsai Ming-liang

Loneliness filmed at length and almost without dialogue. Tsai returns to the same actor (Lee Kang-sheng) across decades, in leaking apartments and emptying cinemas, and lets shots run far past the point where information stops arriving. Water is everywhere — rain, flooding, plumbing that will not stop.

Signature

• Extremely long fixed takes; scenes with no dialogue at all.
• Lee Kang-sheng aging in real time across the filmography.
• Failing architecture: leaks, damp, buildings about to close.
• Sudden musical numbers puncturing the silence.