The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
The River
When
Wed 14 Jun 2023
Featuring Tsai regulars Lee Kang-Sheng, Miao Tien and Lu Yi-Ching as a deconstructed nuclear family living in one of the leakiest apartments in cinema history, this bleak portrayal of urban alienation and loneliness won the Silver Bear at the 1997 Berlinale. Standing in contrast to the frenetic style of much 1990s cinema, the long takes, mostly static camera and minimal dialogue would become signature elements of the director’s style. In his review, The New York Times critic A. O. Scott described Tsai as “a rare director who seems, even at this late date, to be reinventing the medium and rediscovering the world”.
Courtesy of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute.
Also screening on Wed 14 June
Program
One Day at a Time: The cinema of Tsai Ming-Liang
What Time Is It There? (2001) – Wed 31 May, 7pm
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) – Wed 31 May, 9.15pm
Rebels of the Neon God (1992) – Wed 7 Jun, 7pm
The Wayward Cloud (2005) – Wed 7 Jun, 9pm
The River (1997) – Wed 14 Jun, 7pm
Days (2020) – Wed 14 Jun, 9.10pm
About the program
Of all the notable figures of to emerge in 1990s world cinema, few have developed a corpus of work as consistently transfixing and distinctive as that of Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang (1957–). Born in Kuching, Sarawak, Tsai was largely raised by his cinephile grandparents, who would take him to the movies twice a day from the age of three...
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
