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What splits the fine line between desire and expectations? Is it a thing you can see? Is it a thing you can film?

Film at Lincoln Center’s new retrospective supposes that if any of those questions have answers, they might reside in the cinema of Edward Yang. Moving from “A Rational Mind”––the title of their 2011 retrospective of Yang’s work––to “Desire/Expectations” reframes those questions to be more diffuse, less singular. A rational mind could answer in the affirmative or negative; a slash indicates that desire and expectations may occupy the same terrain simultaneously.

“A rational mind” is also, perhaps, an accusation a Yang character could lob at another, especially in A Confucian Confusion (1994), a workplace farce that subjects a “culture company” in 1990s Taipei to the contradictions of Confucian teachings. In turn (or simultaneously), the film interrogates Confucian-influenced, consumer-friendly spaces––like 1990s Taipei––to rethink old-world molds of tradition and expectation.

The 79th Venice International Film Festival has just announced the line-up for the next edition. The 79th Venice International Film Festival is organised by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera. It will take place at Venice Lido from 31 August to 10 September 2022. The Festival is officially recognised by the Fiapf (International Federation of Film Producers Association).

The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote international cinema in all its forms as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue. The Festival also organises retrospectives and tributes to major figures as a contribution towards a better understanding of the history of cinema.

Here are all the Asian Titles on the Programme:

Competition:

Love Life

Director Koji Fukada

Main Cast Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada / Japan, France / 123’

Shab, Dakheli, Divar (Beyond The Wall)

Director Vahid Jalilvand

Main Cast Navid Mohammadzadeh, Diana Habibi,...

Jenny Lu’s look at the horrors of life for immigrant women in a London massage parlour is upsettingly vivid

In the wake of the financial crisis, literature graduate Tina (Teresa Daley) struggles to find work after moving to London from her native Taiwan to be with her British boyfriend, Frank (Joshua Whitehouse). As a stopgap she takes a job as a receptionist in a massage parlour, gaining first-hand insight into the horrors of the sex industry. There’s selfish mamasan Lily (Sophie Gopsill); sultry, blond-haired student Mei (Amanda Fan); and single mother Sasa (Shiang-chyi Chen), hardened by years of punishing sex work. When shy new girl Anna (Shuang Teng) turns up intending to earn quick cash to pay off a family debt, she’s totally out of her depth.

Taiwan-born, UK-based writer-director Jenny Lu’s script is functional, with leaden dialogue and plotting that tells rather than reveals. Yet the performances are painfully alive,...

Writer/ director Jenny Lu lifts the lid on the seedy underworld of massage parlours and desperate working girls in her debut feature, a well intentioned, if somewhat under-baked tale of a young lady desperate to earn some cash.

For Tina (Teresa Daley) has recently graduated from university, and moved into her boyfriend’s poky flat as she sets out to find a job of her dreams.

After much searching and little luck, Tina stumbles across an advert for a phone receptionist. Figuring it’s well within her skill set, she heads over for an interview, only to discover she’s being offered a job at an illegal massage parlour, where a trio of young ladies service numerous clients a day.

As her desperation for cash increases, Tina finds herself taking the job on, keeping the truth hidden from her boyfriend while pulling in enough cash to get by (he’s...

Jenny Lu’s film, which screened at Eiff last year, is joined by Korean titles The Backstreet Noir and Puzzle.

South Korean sales company Mirovision is launching a slate of new films at Filmart led by UK-Taiwan co-production The Receptionist and two Korean films: black comedy The Backstreet Noir and mystery thriller Puzzle.

The Receptionist made its international premiere last year at Edinburgh International Film Festival and won the prize for best feature film at Sochi International Film Festival & Awards.

UK-based Taiwanese director Jenny Lu made her feature debut with The Receptionist, which follows the lives of the...

One of the best films premiering at this year’s Venice Film Festival, I said in my review of Afternoon, “It’s always been easier to review Tsai Ming-liang’s films than to make sense of them. Characterized by an often impenetrable language of silence and immobility, the Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based filmmaker’s work triggers all kinds of intuitive response that writers crave, yet those same writers might be hard-pressed to explain what they’ve just seen on screen. In this sense, Afternoon poses the exact opposite dilemma, in that it’s by far the most verbal and straightforward project from Tsai – but how do you assess, evaluate, grade something so close to life you’re not even sure what to call it in cinematic terms?”

Featuring Tsai and his long-time actor-of-choice Kang-sheng Lee as themselves in an extended, unscripted conversation shot on static camera, Afternoon has no discernible narrative arc,...

• Quick Links > Strand Releasing > I Don't Want To Sleep Alone > Tsai Ming-liang > Shiang-chyi Chen > The Wayward Cloud > Goodbye Dragon Inn As Strand Releasing further increases its 2007 library, co-presidents Marcus Hu and Jon Gerrans picked up another of director Tsai Ming-liang ’s films I Don't Want To Sleep Alone aka Hei yan quan. The quirky comedy follows Hsiao-kang ( Shiang-chyi Chen ), a homeless Chinese man who is rescued and taken in by Bangladeshi workers following a brutal attack. Following a night on an old mattress with one of the workers, Hsiao-kang finds himself attempting to recover amidst the attractions of 3 amorous women who make their way into the small apartment as a thick and putrid haze descends on the city. In the artistic tone of previous Tsai Ming-liang works, the director utilizes ordinary items in evocative ways. Previous Tsai Ming-liang work included umbrellas and watermelons, but this time around the

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BERLIN -- This silly film does nothing to enhance Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang's reputation. The acting is below par, the mise-en-scene is clumsy and the structure is lazy. Tsai's elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn indicated that he'd stopped attempting to shock by depicting unusual sexual activities in favor of exploring more interesting topics. But The Wayward Cloud sees him reveling in a sexual melee that is both banal and misogynistic. Even die-hard Tsai fans will have to work to hard find something of interest here.

Art house distribution would seem far from certain, though Tsai's name and the film's "exotic" sexual content will provide some marketing angles. The film will probably show up at festivals because of the director's auteur status on the circuit. But it'll probably perform best as a quiet video release aimed at Tsai completists. Cloud played in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it somehow picked up a prize for individual artistic contribution.

Cloud is a kind of continuation of 2001's "What Time Is It There?" though style and characterization are much different. Tsai's 2002 short film The Skywalk Is Missing -- a precise piece of work more akin to Dragon -- provided the narrative bridge between the two. Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng) is no longer selling watches but making a living as a performer in porno films. Shiang-chyi Chen Shiang-chiyi) looms around and ends up watching him make love to an unconscious Japanese porno actress (Sumomo Yozakura). The experience excites her so much that she lets him thrust his penis into her mouth. Like Tsai's The Hole, the film is punctuated with campy musical set pieces.

Tsai tries to be tongue in cheek, but the results are unfunny. A cheesy sequence in which a Japanese porn actress gets a bottletop stuck up her vagina even reminds of Hong Kong's master of lowbrow comedy, Wong Jing, though he would have made it more amusing. But the film's worst failing is its rampant misogyny. The Japanese actress is essentially raped on the porn set at the end, but the film fails to even acknowledge this, let alone make any comment on it. All the women in the film are simply presented as holes for Lee to joyfully thrust his penis into.

In spite of Tsai's desire to focus on the sexual act, it's still a coy film. There are semenlike substances, and the sex could be real, but no actual genitalia are shown. At least Catherine Breillat's Anatomy of Hell -- a kind of anti-Cloud in the sense that it was a strong attack on misogyny -- had the courage to go whole hog and depict hard-core sex to support its ideas. Taking a similar approach might have reinforced Tsai's "vision." But Tsai always prefers to wimp out at the last minute and cut away.

Tsai, when freed from his desire to shock and revel in seediness, has shown himself to be a master of the longeur. His compositional skills can be excellent, and he can force intense performances from his performers. It's a shame that today's homespun Taiwanese film industry doesn't allow for strong producers who could funnel his vision into films more worthy of his talent.

THE WAYWARD CLOUD

Arena Films and Homegreen Films present

Credits:

Director-screenwriter: Tsai Ming-liang

Producer: Bruno Peserer

Executive producer: Vincent Wang

Director of photography: Liao Pen-jung

Production designer: Yip Kam-ting

Art director: Lee Tian-jue

Costume designer: Sun Hui-mei

Editor: Chen Sheng-chang

Choreographer: Peggy Wu

Sound designers: Tu Duu-Chih, Tang Shiang-Chu

Cast:

Hsiao-kang: Lee Kang-sheng

Shiang-chyi: Chen Shiang-chyi

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 113 minutes...