The Hole

(image source)

If you have followed this blog for a while, you must have figured out that I'm a big fan of the director Ming-liang Tsai. I finally had the chance to see one of the few films of his I had not yet seen - The Hole (1998). It is yet another exploration of alienation and loneliness from the director: in an abandoned Taiwan, two "survivors" try to cope with said themes after a lousy plumber creates a hole between their apartments.

This is the first time Tsai uses slapstick comedy and musical scenes during his career and they already work quite well - although they are not as refined as in his later films like What Time Is It There and The Wayward Cloud. When it comes to Tsai films, you are guaranteed to get a thorough study on the same themes so the focus is shifted towards how he approaches it. The song-and-dance numbers are surprisingly straightforward in the way they are related to the actual plot. The humor stands out so well that it sometimes feels as if Tsai isn't serious about the script at all. That's only a minor gripe, though.

Combined with the relatively bad audio quality of the DVD, the film's weird sound design was rough on my ears at first, but I got used to the constant background noise caused mostly by neverending rain. Tsai uses only Grace Chang's songs as the soundtrack - and even they are only used in the musical scenes. The (intentionally) downright ugly sets were intriguing yet they never made the film seem as grim as they could have. Tsai's long take aesthetic is always present and this film is unsurprisingly yet another photographical achievement for the director.

Tsai's films might be tough to watch - and even harder to review - on the first time so I don't think I have achieved what I wanted with this review. Tsai's cinema is the cause of undying fascination for me and it is something I will certainly delve deeper into in future. I hope I can write a better review for this blog of The Hole someday.

Score: 9 out of 10