#346 - Tsai Ming-liang on the Making of Days

Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a talk from the 58th New York Film Festival with Tsai Ming-liang, the director of Days, moderated by NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim and interpreted by Vincent Cheng. The great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang has been directing exquisite examinations of alienation, isolation, and the fleeting beauty of human connection featuring his muse Lee Kang-sheng for decades. His latest film, Days will undoubtedly stand as one of his best, sparest, and most intimate works. Lee once again stars as a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment in Hong Kong for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok, goes about his daily routine. These two solitary men eventually come together in a moment of healing, tenderness, and sexual release. Among the most cathartic entries in Tsai’s filmography, Days is a work of longing, constructed with the director’s customary brilliance at visual composition and shot through with profound empathy. Days opens in our theaters on August 13th. For tickets and showtimes, visit filmling.org/days