The Hole
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Movie Reviews of The Hole
Movie Review: Unique, wonderful, charming, funny, disturbing--what a film!
Summary: 5 Stars
Tsai Ming-Liang is truly a unique talent. In The Hole he's envisioned life at the end of the 20th century in Taipei, beset by a bizarre combination of endless rain and a very weird viral plague that leaves its victims sneezing, crawling around like roaches, and avoiding the light. In a rundown apartment building live a single man and, directly underneath him, a single woman, both in their late 20s/early 30s.
The ceaseless rain ruins everything--wallpaper, mattresses, you name it. The juxtaposition of this constantly dreary environment with continuous loneliness gives rise, in the heart of the young woman, to fantasy sequences in which the songs of Grace Chang, a popular Taiwanese singer, are enacted, musical revue-style, by the woman and backup singers/dancers in appropriately glitzy attire. These astonishing interludes, coming completely out of nowhere, make the viewer sit up and take notice--here is a filmmaker with some serious filmmaking chops, no question.
The title refers to the opening left in the young man's floor by a clumsy plumber who's come to, supposedly, fix the faulty pipes in the man's apartment. He never returns to fix the hole and through it, in the course of the film, comes bug spray, a leg, an arm, and, eventually, the young woman herself. Seeing a leg dangling from your ceiling--from the perspective of the downstairs apartment resident--is surreal to say the least.
This is one of the most creative love stories in cinema and Tsai Ming-Liang should be heartily congratulated for doing what so few filmmakers these days are doing--taking chances to a remarkable degree, giving in film what so few can give--real inspiration based on creativity that knows no limits.
A terrific film that should be seen by those who love cinema for what it really can do. Very highly recommended.
Movie Review: a favorite apocalyptic love story
Summary: 5 Stars
Gorgeous cinema, perfect acting and the Grace Chang "karaoke"/Dennis Poter-esque musical numbers are exquisite. Many people who are used to standard United States movies wil never enjoy/get it, but the rest of us love it.Movie Review: The development of a hole...
Summary: 4 Stars
The government wants to quarantine an area after an outbreak of Taiwan Fever and they will turn off the water in the area after New Years Eve of 2000, which is seven days away. However, some people refuse to leave their homes as they have lived there for a long time. A young man, who lives in the quarantined area, goes about his mundane life as he feeds the cat, goes to work, eats, and sleeps. When the plumber knocks on his door due to a water leakage in the apartment complex it is about to little by little change his daily life style. The plumber creates a small hole that leads to the apartment downstairs where a young woman lives. The young woman is first very annoyed by the hole in her ceiling, but as time goes by she begins to communicate with the young man upstairs. Hole is not an ordinary cinematic experience as it uses shots that seem to go on forever, which instill a feeling of boredom and lifelessness. These long shots are enhanced by the rain that keeps falling non-stop in the background creating an illusion of a invisible wall that no one can escape. Simultaneously the radio and TV are spitting out threatening information in regards to the rare disease in the area, which is terrorizing the minds of the audience. The director Tsai creates an artificial imprisonment where the audience can fall into the same trap as the characters as they struggle with their coexistence through the hole, which is occasionally interrupted by colorful hallucination like scenes of song and dance. This leaves the audience with a remarkable cinematic experience as they view the development of the hole.Movie Review: Something a little different can be a good thing.
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this movie as part of a double feature. They first showed Hal Hartley's "Book of Life" followed by a 10 minute intermission and then they showed "The Hole". For a movie I almost walked out on before it started, I was happy I stayed even with the subtitles. This and Hartley's movie were part of a End of the Millenium Film series produced by a French company. (it has been some time and forget the details).This movie is about the annoyances of close living quarters, for anyone who has had a noisy upstairs neighbor knows what I'm talking about (next time live on the top floor). But this movie also brings up the idea of what can bring two people together, no matter what keeps them apart, they just need a little help to find one another.
There is a lot of interesting camera work and character development. Where it goes I don't always know, but I am more than willing to watch it again. Purely enlightening experience. There are also musical dance sequences that come in to break up the scenes and carry the film through.
Definately worth seeing, maybe not owning.
Movie Review: Sexy examination of the disaffected
Summary: 4 Stars
Sexy as all get out. And I'm not talking about the "Calypso" or the "Sneezing, I'm allergic to you" song and dance numbers, either. But when one sits down and thinks about why it's sexy, it says alot about one's own fetishizations and brand of sexuality, I think. For example, consider the physical separation of the man and woman. One's on top, one's on the bottom. The voyeurism was also strictly one way, which forces the other person to be an exhibitionist. And despite the advantage/disadvantage environment that is dictated purely by things beyond their control (i.e. the weather, the Kafkaesque Gregor Samsa virus) a desire for one another was still nurtured. I found the film totally fascinating.
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