Goodbye, Dragon Inn [dir. Tsai Ming-liang]

In Goodbye, Dragon Inn, two characters stand silent for a long spell in the cramped disused corridor of a movie-hall building, while outside the rain steadily pours. Finally, one says to the other, "They say this theater is haunted." Coming somewhere around the halfway mark, it is the first instance of an original spoken line in this 82-min film. This is not to say that the proceedings thus far had been silent, or even devoid of dialog. But all the words heard till then came off the movie screen as it played the film-within-a-film of King Hu's Dragon Inn. In Tsai Ming-liang's languorous post-millennium arthouse drama the flickering images from Hu's 1967 swordplay epic are like ghosts. Ironically, these visuals and the crackling diegetic sounds are also the most vital element in a film whose 'real' characters all act like specters or somnambulists.

The most significant specter is of course the theater building itself: a crumbling edifice with dripping un-carpeted corridors, winding staircases and toilets that need to be manually flushed, it is living in the past. You can almost smell the dankness and decay. Even the films screened are ghosts, re-runs from long ago. We are privy to the last show of the day, maybe the last show ever for the cinema.

This shadow of fatalism hangs over all the other characters. They have no names, no identities beyond what we immediately see. There's the handicapped ticket-lady (Shiang-chyi Chen) who also doubles as janitor. The film devotes swathes of footage to her clomping deliberately along the lengths of passages or climbing multiple flights of stairs. She has unrequited attraction for the projectionist: when after making her way up she doesn't see him in his room, she stares a while at the still smoldering cigarette on the table edge, as though taking in his essence from its vapors. One of the most film's memorable images is when she looks up from behind the screen at the warrior woman in Dragon Inn gracefully leaping, dodging and slicing her path. It is a stark contrast to our ticket-lady with her slow clop.

Then there's the Japanese guy (Kiyonobu Mitamura) who mouths the line I referred to in the opening of this piece. Sitting for a vintage Mandarin potboiler in this derelict movie-house he is a fish out of water. We see him shift from one place to another: once to move away from a pair of women noisily crunching snacks, once as though to check on an old man sitting so still he might be dead. His encounter with a predatory woman slowly cracking nuts between her teeth is both humorous and creepy. We later learn that his interest in the movie-hall is not purely cinematic: it is a cruising joint for gays (In one scene a row of men take an undue amount of time at the urinals as they  discreetly size each other up). His remark about the haunted theater is intended as a pick-up line, but in Goodbye, Dragon Inn's deadpan world, all passions run cold, all desires go unfulfilled.

Going into the film, I knew this might be a polarizing "love it or hate it" experience. I get what Tsai Ming-liang was going for, an existential ghost story where the ghosts are memories of times gone or the desires/aspirations that either fell by the wayside or remained unsatisfied. The film has parallels with some of Wong Kar-wai's work, particularly In the Mood for Love (ItMfL). I don't know if it is representative of Tasi Ming-liang's general style, but in contrast with the lushness of ItMfL's elegy, Goodbye, Dragon Inn has an austere, even anemic vibe. I have to say that at least on first watch, I wasn't wholly engrossed. Like the ticket-lady's steps the pace is plodding, and it may be telling that during the runtime I had a repeated urge to pause this and re-watch my copy of Dragon Inn instead.

That said, it may prove more evocative on repeat watches when the rhythm of the film is already in the head. Ming-liang's affection for the theme and the setting is certainly evident (Apparently the idea came about after the theater owner told him that the place was going to be shut down). To complement the footage from Dragon Inn, two of that film's stars have cameos here that kindle the nostalgia factor. Perhaps on another rainy day, I may make a trip to this rundown theater and sit for a repeat show.