Tsai's films have been becoming more and more minimalist over time. Yet while his stories have always been very implicit, films such as
Ai qing wan sui (1994),
Bu san (2003) and the masterful
Jiao you (2013) all have a message, a concept, a central idea. Even a extremely minimalist piece such as
Xi you (2014) is very conceptual.
Rizi lacks in that regard, in my opinion. I can see how Tsai wanted to strip down a film even more than some of his other work, to get even closer to the essence, and this is to be applauded. At the same time it seems to me the film is an afterthought and not a premeditated work. From what I gather, Tsai had been shooting Kang-sheng Lee and Anong Houngheuangsy separately, without the goal of making a film.
Apparently he was then compelled to create a feature film after all and decided the center piece would be an encounter between the two men. Now, that encounter is filmed beautifully and while it has been described as erotic, I'd say above all it is a human encounter.
However the material before and after this central event is disconnected and does not have the same weight as provided by the performances in some Tsai's earlier films. One could argue that this disconnection is on purpose, but it just did not feel that way to me. It felt somewhat artificial.
Still, the two hours were a nice meditative experience, so if you are a slow cinema afficionado it's worth seeing. But it's no Stray Dogs or Goodbye Dragon Inn.
