7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In the overpopulated metropolis of Taipei, two men and a woman literally circle each other. Mei-mei is a lonely real-estate agent who works long hours. One day she misplaces the keys to one of her vacant apartments. The young, hesitant, and gay Hsiao-kang, who sells funeral-urn space, takes the keys and happily takes to living surreptitiously in the apartment, unaware that Mei and the footloose, cocky Ah-jung also use the flat regularly.
Starring: Kang-sheng Lee, Chao-jung Chen, Kuei-Mei Yang, Yi-Ching LuForeign | 100% |
Drama | 77% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Mandarin: LPCM 2.0 Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Urban living can be a perilous form of existence, and isolation and emotional inaccessibility are often the norm despite the apparent density of the population in such centers. That underlying tension probably offers the intentional irony for both the vive and the l'amour of this film's title, since not only is there little if any love, at least one character wants to commit suicide, at least initially. The film opens kind of audaciously both with a provocative plot element and a presentational aspect that delivers a semblance of a narrative with only a smattering of frankly inconsequential "dialogue". A salesman named Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng) is seen in an apartment complex where he apparently needs the signature of a resident (this is one element that is probably not very well explained, given what is ultimately revealed about the character and his "career"). Hsaio-kang notices a key just hanging in a lock and after making sure no one is around to spy him stealing it, he simply takes it, later letting himself in and seeming to "set up shop" there, albeit with no apparent accoutrements like luggage (which soon plays into things). The story then segues to a kind of interesting "meet cute" between the two other focal characters of this piece, a real estate agent named May Lin (Yang Kuei- mei) and Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung), who not so subtly flirt with each other at a coffee shop and afterward and end up hooking up for an ostensible one night stand, not so coincidentally back at the same apartment Hsaio-kang is already in, and where it has been quickly documented that the reason he doesn't have anything with him is because he's planning on killing himself. The sudden sexual activity between May Lin and Ah-jung perhaps somewhat comically gives Hsaio-kang something to live for, and a very strange, almost dissociative, quasi ménage ā trois ensues, although probably not in a "traditional" sense, since co-writer and director Tsai Ming-liang obviously wants to emphasize the cold distance between this trio of characters.
Vive L'Amour is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The press sheet Film Movement sent along with this release touts a 2K restoration, which the insert booklet further clarifies (if only briefly) as having been culled from the original negative. I've gone on record as stating I sometimes find the Blu-ray releases from Film Movement can look too bright, almost as if gamma had been miscalculated, but I'm happy to report that this release looks really good in that regard. Contrast is stable and the palette looks really good most of the time, though there are a couple of slightly strange looking moments, including a couple of scenes that have a definite blue cast to them (the final sequence with May Lin is a notable example). Other relatively brief moments can offer slight downgrades in clarity along with a slightly yellow or maybe yellow-green cast (see screenshot 19), but by and large detail levels are excellent and fine detail on things like fabrics can also be very appealing. I noticed no major damage and no compression issues, and the entire presentation has a really nicely organic quality.
Vive L'Amour features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original Mandarin, though ascribing a "language" to this film may be slightly misleading in that large swaths of this story play out with relatively few words being spoken. When there is dialogue, it's rendered without any issues whatsoever, and there's also a good accounting of some of the busy urban environments in terms of background clamor and the like. Optional English subtitles are available.
A film which ends with one major character weeping uncontrollably may seem like an odd candidate to be termed a "comedy", and yet quite unexpectedly there's a very black thread of humor running through this strange and almost hypnotic film. A mismatched trio of innately unhappy people manage to become sympathetic in their own ways, and the film is really kind of provocative in some of its presentational aspects, which emphasize long takes without a whole bunch of dialogue being spoken. Technical merits are solid, and the interview with Tsai Ming-liang is a lot of fun. Recommended.
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