- Taiwan
STRAY DOGS
Synopsis
A man (Lee Kang-sheng) and his two children live on the outskirts of Taipei, without a flat. During the day the father stands at a road junction in the rain, holding up a sign advertising luxury flats; the children wander through supermarkets and live on free samples. At night they sleep in abandoned buildings. On the father’s birthday, a woman appears who has been helping the children for some time, and with her something long buried begins to stir. In “Stray Dogs” (Taiwan, 2013), Tsai Ming-liang tells of a family the city has spat out.
Tsai works with very long, static shots that make duration itself the subject of the film: a man eating a head of cabbage, a wall contemplated for minutes on end. Realistic depiction and stylised, almost dreamlike tableaux stand side by side. Tsai declared the film his last after the premiere. “Stray Dogs” won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice in 2013. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2014.
Festival
Shown at the 2014 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
