Alienation, incommunicability, desire, solitude… Co-scripted by Tsai Ming-liang, this coming-of-age story already includes the themes she favoured at the beginning of her career. Featuring a moving Maggie Cheung, the film recounts the three stages in the emotional construction of a young Taiwanese woman. Blending kitsch and melodrama, levity and bitterness, the film becomes the mirror of a society: the relationships, imagined or experienced, reflect the malfunctions and taboos, underpinning the critique of a system that condones patriarchy, marriage of convenience and the grimness of a housewife’s life. And the character’s psychological development is a reflection on the changes in a country that aspires to free itself of constraints and find its own way forward.
Frédérique Monblanc
Restored print · World premiere
