Filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang says his work should be appreciated slowly
Many viewers find Tsai Ming-liang's ongoing art project challenging, but his work needs to be watched patiently to be understood
The latest phase of filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang's ongoing experimental art project Walker takes the action (or the lack of it) to Marseille, where a monk, played by actor Lee Kang-sheng, is seen walking on the lively streets of the southern French city at a snail's pace.
How this cinematic journey, which began in Hong Kong last year, moved so swiftly to France reaffirms the Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based director's cosy relationship with the country, and highlights Europe's love of his work.
They said they found it unbearable, that Lee Kang-sheng was walking too slowly
A well-known French cinephile, 56-year-old Tsai is an admirer of the works of French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut. Tsai referenced Truffaut's The 400 Blows in What Time Is It There?, a 2001 film which featured a time and space swap between Taipei and Paris.
The French have returned Tsai's admiration. Tsai was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2002, and was commissioned by the Louvre Museum to make Face, a 2009 film shot entirely within the famed museum.
"I never imagined Lee Kang-sheng would arrive so quickly to pursue his meditative walk in Europe," Tsai says jokingly. "Nevertheless the choice of Marseille was not sudden or unexpected. As we say in China, 'I was already feeling in advance a strong affinity with this place.'"
His connection with Marseille - France's second-largest city, and this year's European Capital of Culture - dates back to 2002, when Jean-Pierre Rehm took over the artistic direction of the International Film Festival Marseille (FID) and invited Tsai to screen his short film, A Conversation with God, in its international competition.