Jornal da Mostra
Nº 343 > 28ª Mostra > 27/07/2005
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With The Wayward Cloud, Tsai-Ming strikes again
Imagine Taiwan desolate by the lack of water and its inhabitants having to do all sorts of things to live with that. Some of them secretly fill bottles of water in public bathrooms, others wash themselves with the water from roofs reservoirs. In the plot, a woman falls in love with a man that is doing a porno movie in the building where she lives, but she doesn’t realize it. In the middle of all this, watermelons take on the lead part in the plot: as an alternative for the thirst and erotic subject. Besides all that, kitsch musical numbers interpose the plot.That’s The Wayward Cloud from the Malayan filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang (creator of Good Bye, Dragon Inn - 27ª Mostra - and Vive L’Amour - 23ª Mostra). Once more the director mixes ideas, obsessions and contemplation and supplies the audience with an unique experience, surreal and amazing. The title was inspired in a music that makes reference to clouds that wander in the skies without touching each other, as the leading actors in the plot.
Anyone who knows Tsai Ming-Liang movies will recognize in this film elements from other productions from the director. For instance, the musical numbers that single out this film were also included in The Hole. The obsession for watermelons is also not a novelty. In Vive L’Amour, the character Hisao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng) plays bowling with a watermelon in an empty apartment.
In the last Berlin Film Festival, Tsai Ming-liang won the Gold Bear for his artistic contribution and also won the International Association of Art Critics award and the Alfred Bauer Award, created in honor of the festival founder, dedicated to those who manage to “take the cinema to new directions”. And, certainly, Tsai Ming does it.
