Journey to the West (Xi you)

Showings

Dutmers at the Dennos Museum Wed, Jul 29, 2015 3:00 PM
Dutmers at the Dennos Museum Thu, Jul 30, 2015 12:00 PM
Dutmers at the Dennos Museum Fri, Jul 31, 2015 12:00 PM
Dutmers at the Dennos Museum Fri, Jul 31, 2015 6:00 PM
Dutmers at the Dennos Museum Sat, Aug 1, 2015 9:00 PM
Film Info
Section:Avant-Garde Film at Dutmers
Release Year:2014
Runtime:56 min.
Rating:NR
Production Country:France
Taiwan
Original Language:Mandarin
Subtitles:English
Cast/Crew Info
Cast:Lee Kang-sheng
Denis Lavant
Director:Tsai Ming-liang
Produced by:Frédéric Bellaïche
Vincent Wang
Screenwriter:Tsai Ming-liang
Cinematography:Antoine Héberlé
Editing By:Lei Chen-Ching
Music By:Sébastien Mauro

Description

From out of retirement, Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang surprised the world with a great gift: “Journey to the West,” the sixth installment in his “Walker” series. Perennial protagonist Lee Kang-sheng unswervingly makes his way at an exaggerated snail’s pace through the French city of Marseille, with life bustling around him, like an illusion in his bright red robe. Loosely based on the life of Xuanzang, a seventh-century Buddhist monk who painstakingly traversed Asia for 17 years in search of “the void,” the film’s series of 14 magnificently composed shots are often startling, even witty, as when Lee slow-walks past a human figure more immobile than he is—a trendily dressed sidewalk dummy—and past red paint which literally seems to be drying. Part performance art, part tone poem, and part rebuke to bloated commercial film productions, “Journey to the West” insists that we, too, slow down and see the world anew.