The Tsai Ming-liang: The Deserted film series closes with the UK premiere of his most touching and personal film, Afternoon. The feature-length film gorgeously captures a ruminative conversation between Tsai and Lee Kang-sheng, the actor who has appeared in all of his films, and with whom he now shares a mountainside home. It is shot in a raw, near-ruin of a room of their shared house whose open-air windows extend the view out to the lush greenery of the surrounding landscape and afternoon sky. Recorded soon after Tsai first announced plans to retire from filmmaking, the film is a moment to consider his and Lee’s intertwined careers, collaboration and friendship. Tsai does most of the talking, expressing his great praise for Lee’s work, and musing on his own poor health, his queer identity, spirituality and thoughts on the afterlife.
Programme
Curatorial introduction
Afternoon Taiwan 2015, DCP, colour, sound, 137 min, Mandarin with English subtitles
