No matter how high a crane flies,' a Malay proverb goes, 'it will eventually return home.' After spending nearly two decades making award-winning films in Taiwan, director Tsai Ming-liang has done just that. For I Don't Want to Sleep Alone he has returned to Malaysia with a film that examines the lonely plight of migrant workers in a multicultural society.
The film was commissioned by Vienna's New Crowned Hope festival to celebrate Mozart's 250th birth last year, as part of a series that included films by Thailand's Apitchatpong Weerasekathul (Syndromes and a Century) and Indonesia's Garin Nugroho (Opera Jawa). Yet Tsai says he already had an idea to make a film about migrant workers when he took a break from working in Taiwan to spend a year back in Malaysia in 1999.
'I saw a lot of foreigners who worked as labourers,' Tsai says. He was drawn to their plight, especially after the Asian economic crisis of 1997, when many were left to fend for themselves.
Tsai, who regards himself as something of a wanderer, identified with the immigrants' predicaments. He also drew a comparison between their lives and that of the Austrian composer. 'I saw a similarity,' the 49-year-old filmmaker says. 'Since he was six years old, Mozart wandered around Europe. It's the same with the labourers, who have spent their lives wandering in foreign countries.'
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone revolves around a homeless Chinese immigrant, Hsiao-kang (played by Tsai's muse, Lee Kang-sheng), who is nursed by a Bangladeshi worker (Norman Atun) after being beaten by street thugs in Kuala Lumpur. Hsiao-kang later falls in love with a waitress named Chyi (Chen Shiang-chyi), who works under the watchful eye of her boss (Pearlly Chua) while nursing her paralysed son (also played by Lee).
Nominated for the Golden Lion award at last year's Venice Film Festival, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone has been hailed as the most accessible of Tsai's films - they're often considered slow, dark affairs - but it has also stirred controversy. Last year, he withdrew the film from Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards after jury members trashed it as 'self-indulgent'.