Customer Reviews

The River

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It seems like most everyone else reviewing this film missed the point entirely. If the film seems dead like the dummy, then why do you think the dummy was in the film in the first place? The characters are emotionally dead, floating down the river (of life?) like the dummy. Everything means something. Tsai Ming-Liang is not interested in how crazy he can make the camera move. He is one of the few directors I have seen whose films are a reaction AGAINST action, and by action I mean the Tarantino/Rodriguez-style. Which is not to say I don't admire those directors. Ming-Liang's films just hold so much SUBTLETY. The long shots and little camera movement force the viewer not to merely watch but to participate. Why is the camera set up this way? What am I watching? Why am I watching it? In other words, he forces the viewer to make the associations normally presented surface-level to the viewer of most other films. Apparently Wong Kar-Wai is supposed to be the new Godard. But Godard was always more into filming "essays" and filming in such a way that was supposedly not "allowed." So I believe Ming-Liang's films are much closer to Godard's style in that they are reactions against the current norm. He is the son of Ozu and Antonioni, with a complete aesthetic, technical, and emotional motivation behind his style. Ming-Liang is one of the most slept on directors working today. If you have a true love for cinema, not just Kevin Smith, Tarantino, and David Lynch, if you can appreciate a thin line between comedy and drama, if you can allow yourself to be sculpted into a new form of viewing cinema, just as the directors of the Nouvelle Vague once did, then... you get the idea.

it's amazing to me how you can summarize this film so matter of factly and made it through it, but can't realize that your emotional response to it was forecoded by the director. do you think he really wanted you to be mesmerized in the western-commodity-entertainment sense of a viewing experience? to fully appreciate tsai's masterpiece, we have to develop a new viewing strategy descendant from antonioni, ozu, etc. if you need a unifying thread to titillate your sense of linear narrative continuity, try the ubiquity of water in its myriad forms and how that relates to the despair and utter alienation of the characters both constricted by a colonized city that has grown too fast to maintain and the tyranny of the oedipal family scenario as it is linked to the very same capitalistic regime. it is a profound meditation on what happens to the spirit in this highly specific and contextualized allegory shot through with mise-en-scene punning and starkly lyrical use of a poetics of absence. try to get on an equation with the artist not just foist your own expectations on the work and then its secrets will flourish.

Highly recommended if you are a fan of Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Tarr or other filmmakers who utilize time (especially slow pacing) and landscape to help develop the internal states of their characters. Tsai's films are very meditative and contemplative; they help you to understand a character by observing their daily routine and most intimate moments played out in full. His works are challenging, but well worth the effort.

This movie is not what we Westerners are accustomed to in movies, therefore we tend to dismiss it. We like all emotions openly displayed. lots of dialogue and the plot must be resolved.
You will find none of this in this movie, but it is certainly worth viewing and once you understand the reason for the lack of interaction between characters, it does make sense.

Another aspect that makes the movie difficult is the long scenes when nothing is happening on the screen. That was the director's approach.

The family is totally disfunctional as a unit. The parents never speak to each other, they all eat alone, and they function in their own little worlds with virtually no emotion.
Even sex is random with no emotions attached.

After the encounter between the son and the father, no one speaks of it and life continues on as before. There is no resolution to anything. That is the horror of the whole movie.

This film is an unbelievable masterpiece. Tsai Ming-Liang continues to outdo himself at every turn, creating yet another of the best films since the advent of sound. His quiet but relentless attack on the entire idea of the modern narrative film would do Eisenstein proud. Anyone doubting the supreme genius with which he seeks to confound the cinema illiterate West need only read the other reviews on this page. The fact that one confused reviewer had the unmitigated audacity to trash this film after appointing himself "Enlightened One" had me holding my sides with laughter.

If you are sick of spastic, attention-deficit editing; if you hate being told how to feel about your movie by a ridiculous, invasive orchestra score; if you no longer need to be told how important a scene is by the volume of the actor's voice, Tsai Ming-Liang just might be for you. I am still chuckling to myself as I write this, imagining some clueless art-house hipster adjusting the brightness on his set and trying to figure out how tell what a character is feeling without a close-up of their face.

Good Lord. Imagine what these people would make of Bela Tarr.

This downbeat film about a family in Taipei is open to many interpretations, which will make it intriguing for viewers who like movies that make them wonder about what they are watching. There is something of a storyline in this film - a young man falls mysteriously ill and his parents attempt to find a cure for him - but its chief purpose seems to be little more than the thread on which each scene is strung together. Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .

What we see is three people living in the same small apartment who are almost completely estranged from each other, rarely speaking, deeply bored and reaching out for human contact through occasional moments of illicit and unsatisfying encounters. The absence of familial affection and the emptiness of its substitutes are brought together in a final ironic incident between father and son.

Water, the bringer of life and purification, is instead a menacing presence in the film - from a polluted river to a leaky ceiling that seems unrepairable. Winner of many awards when it was released, the film is a troubling portrayal of modern urban life. While its long, slow scenes require some patience from the viewer, there is much to ponder as the closing credits begin to crawl - and for hours afterward.

This is simply the kind of film that one will either like or dislike. I really can't see there being two-ways about it.
It has only been a year or so since I emersed myself into the world of independent/international/arthouse/whatever you want to call it, films. The River is not for the novice!

I forced myself to finish the film because I felt it was important to at least give the director's vision a chance before judging. I am glad I did. The film has no music in it, all you get is the natural ambiance of the characters surroundings. That kinda leaves a haunting echo over each scene.

i love artistic movies...but what happened to this one? it's a strange movie indeed. viewing from an artistic point of view, it may make some sense, but with lots of forwarding. if you like slow artsy movie, watch "scent of green papaya" instead.

...Ming-liang Tsai's films drag along endlessly with no direction and, quite frankly, no real acting. The River is a story which could have been easily and effectively told in 30 minutes, but instead it drags on for two hours. Scenes are needlessly drawn out and tell the viewer rather little. This is not avant-garde or alternative film making...