Visage (2009)

Directed by: Tsai Ming-Liang | 138 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-Ching, Fanny Ardant, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Laetitia Casta, Norman Atun, Jeanne Moreau, Nathalie Baye, Mathieu Amalric, Shiang-chyi Chen, Chen Chao-rong

An old woman chops meat. In the same house a man is sleeping, undisturbed by the noise of the knife that hits the cutting board at regular intervals. A woman rings the doorbell and looks through the window if it doesn’t open. A man is sitting in a chair outside and sleeping. He doesn’t wake up when it starts to snow. A young, beautiful woman stares blankly ahead as she smokes a cigarette. After some time she starts to tape the window in front of which she is sitting with black tape. She doesn’t do it very conveniently; the tape comes off here and there. A description of some of the first scenes Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang put in his overcrowded (and long!) film. The mutual coherence is hard to find and it takes at least an hour before the puzzle pieces start to fall into place. Tsai does not make it easy for his audience. But the connoisseur and lover of his work is prepared and for them ‘Visage’ will be like seeing a friend who has taken a sabbatical elsewhere for a year.

Tsai recycles many of his frequently used themes: just like in ‘The Wayward Cloud’, ‘Visage’ also has kitschy musical intermezzos, which hardly add anything to the story, but serve as a guilty pleasure. Of course, these scenes are also beautifully filmed, because all in all, Tsai’s cinematography is very rewarding. Tsai’s characteristic long static shots are also present here, as are sizzling and erotic images. For example, notice the scene where main character Kang (Lee Kang-sheng) is doused in tomato soup, or sauce, and then longingly, but out of control of his condition, watches a dancing, stripping Laetitia Casta with two other naked ladies. Water in all forms is also prominent: the most beautiful scene is the one where the beautiful Casta in a scarlet dress plays one of the camp songs in a sewer, the funniest is when Kang is messing around to turn off the suddenly broken kitchen tap. . An enormously dry-comedy moment and that quite soon in the beginning of the film; it promises a lot. Unfortunately, there isn’t much left to laugh about; because the story is about death and its (difficult) processing, problems with communication and sexuality and the problems that come with directing a film.

‘Visage’ is a film-within-a-film, although it is not immediately stated what the film being shot in ‘Visage’ is about, as is often not made clear in so many words in Tsai’s films. A film for lovers of symbolism. ‘Visage’ is also an ode to the Nouvelle vague, the genre in which French directors such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard excelled. This is evident not only from the fact that Jean-Pierre Léaud (Truffaut’s favorite actor) and Fanny Ardant (Truffaut’s partner and muse) play an important role, but also from the fact that conversations are conducted off-screen, for example, without you see the actors, one of the hallmarks of films from the Nouvelle vague. If you enjoy installations in museums, ‘Visage’ is definitely the film you should put high on your to-see list, and audiences that don’t shy away from experimenting should also try this production. Some scenes make a deep impression and will stay with you for a lifetime, but you don’t have to have high expectations of the emotional impact of the story Tsai tells you.