This film is part of our BODIES OF WATER series, screening in May and June at De Uitkijk.
This masterful, unsettling film follows a middle-aged couple and their only son. Though they live under the same roof, each leads an isolated, secluded, and hidden existence. After a strange experience in the Tamsui River, the son begins to suffer from an inexplicable pain in his neck. At the same time, a water leak appears in the house. Desires, loneliness, and pain also flow invisibly beneath the surface — just like the water itself.
Tsai Ming-liang’s (Goodbye Dragon Inn, Rebels of the Neon God) film is strange, disturbing, yet deeply immersive. Water — in all its forms — is a constant motif in The River: it symbolizes both connection and decay, the element that binds them together and consumes them.