urban alienation

Estrangement produced by the modern city itself. Not simply a lonely person who happens to live in one — the density, glass, transit and anonymity are the cause, and the film usually knows it, filming architecture as the antagonist. Characters are surrounded by people and reachable by none of them.

Films here also carry Loneliness & Isolation, Moral Ambiguity, Identity Crisis, Psychological Horror, Coming of Age · Most represented: Tsai Ming-liang, Edward Yang, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski.