I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Taiwanese: 黑眼圈 (Black Eye)) by Tsai Ming-Liang – Film Review
The first time I saw The River, it being my first movie by Tsai Ming-Liang, I brushed it off as overdrawn and artsy. The Wayward Cloud from 2005, however, has so impressed me that I started digging into Tsai’s film archive: Goodbye, Dragon Inn is a fantastic idea somewhat lost in pretension; Rebels of The Neon Gods feels like a reminiscent tribute to my teenage years. When Tsai’s latest I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone premiered last year at the London Film Festival, a friend of mine who saw it told me, vaguely and without irony, that the film was about a mattress. He was not all too enthusiastic about it alright. So when the movie opened in Taipei a couple of weeks ago, I walked into the movie theater half expecting to be staring at a flea ridden mattress for 2 hours.
That didn’t happen. In fact, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone has proved to be his most engaging visual extravaganza so far, and has even replaced The Wayward Cloud as my favorite Tsai Ming-Liang Movie (OK, I still have Viva L’Amour and The Hole and What Time Is It There on the to-see list). Yes, there is a mattress, but the movie is about the people who carry it, who lay on it, who float and dream with it. Where The Wayward Cloud wrings dry every drop of love out of the sex and shoves it down our throat (am I thinking about the final scene?) to demonstrate the separability of love and sex, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone takes a much tenderer and forgiving look at loneliness and desire that transcend gender or ethnicity.
Rawang is a foreign construction worker in Kuala Lumpur. His only friends are his coworkers, with whom he hangs out at karaoke bars at night. His life changed when one day, carrying home a shabby mattress he and his coworkers picked up on the street, he found a cruelly battered man on the street. Rawang and his friends put him on the mattress and carried both home. As the rest goes on to their business, Rawang looks after the unconscious man carefully. He places in plastic bag filled with cold drinks on the man’s forehead when he’s running a fever. He sets up a mosquito net to keep those blood sucking bugs away the invalid. He undresses him at night and wraps clean sheets around his waist. He washes the senseless man, as well as his dirty underwear. Only when all is done does Rawang lies himself down, next to the total stranger, studying him to sleep. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night, content to find the stranger asleep, safe and sound, next to him. Under Rawang’s care the stranger recuperates gradually and is able to get out of the mattress, the house to wander around the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Rawang is overjoyed at the his patient’s recovery. He would kick his coworker out of bed when the stranger comes home at night just to lay next to him. But Rawang grows curious and starts to follow the stranger to find out where he wanders to at night…
Kang doesn’t speak a word of Malay and manages to become mixed up in a con-game on the street. He gets beaten up by the mob and is left on the street to die. Luckily a Bangladesh construction worker takes him home and takes care of him. The stranger feeds him, washes him, like only a mother would, like only a lover would, asking nothing in return. As Kang draws his strength back day by day, he starts roaming about on the streets as the sun goes down like he used to. Then he meets a woman. The initial silent glances grow ever intenser with each chance meeting, and he begins to follow her around, coming to a nondescript cafe where she works. The owner of the cafe, a woman in her late 40s, loud makeup and a perpetual frown on the face, takes notice of and a strange interest in her employee’s suitor. One night she follows Kang, who also knowingly leads her, into a dark alley. Kang slides his hand into the woman’s jeans, rubbing, clenching, thrusting, making her moan louder and louder…
Chyi is unhappy with her life. She lives and sleeps in a tiny attic over a cafe, where she works. Her boss and owner of the cafe is a mean and exploitative woman. Apart from serving the guests, Chyi is demanded to take care of her boss’ son, who for reasons unknown lies in bed comatose. Once in a while the boss would grab Chyi’s hand, force it into her son’s pants stroking his penis. Chyi loathes it all and feels trapped. Then a strange, wordless man shows up in her life, who looks exactly identical to the helpless son she’s taking care of. It’s a desire and longing with no words to express them nor private places to release them. One day as the poisonous smog caused by a forest fire covers the whole city, the two lovers, wearing gas masks, sneak into a deserted, dilapidated building still under construction. Coughing, choking, as they take off the gas masks to lock their tongues together, they have finally found a place to consummate their physical union…
The film reaches its climax when Kang, waking up at Chyi’s, opens his eyes only to see Rawang, trembling, eyes red, his hand holding a tin can with the sharp opened lid against Kang’s neck. There’s no accusation in Rawang’s eyes, only hurt, and enraged helplessness. Tears run down Rawang’s face as he gradually withdraws the deadly steel.
Such is the structure of I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, but the story is unfolded in Tsai’s unique cinematic narrative. It might take awhile, but when things start to make sense you’ll be blown away. Then there’s the amazing interplay of light and shadows in each frame, resulting in some of the most breathtaking shots Tsai has ever created: the scene in the bathroom where a half clad Rawang pulls down Kang’s briefs and steadies him so he could pee; the eerie, apocalyptic interior of the deserted building where rain water accumulates into a vast pond of water; and of course the close to final scene, in which Chyi comes home late at night, Kang’s already deep in sleep. She lies herself down next to him. Then something in the background moves: there’s someone lying next to Kang already. As our eyes acquaint with the darkness and the person turns around to face the camera, we realize it’s Rawang.
The final scene takes us back to that dark pool of water in the abandoned building. Something slowly drifts into the screen: a floating mattress, carrying Kang, Chyi, and Rawang. I was jolted by the sudden realization that this is all just inside the head of the man lying in coma, who is the very first person Tsai introduces us in his movie: motionless, empty, alone, with sunlight and shadows creep through his body as the day goes by.
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