The Missing

A woman uses a public toilet in a busy city park. She is evidently in great discomfort and must leave her young grandson alone for a few moments. When she returns, she discovers he is gone and for the rest of the film she is frantically looking for him. Ultra realism. The film realistically depicts the panic and then despair of her loss. But that is about the best thing you can say about this film. The super long takes and repetitive action as the woman searches for her grandson create a feeling of agitation, an agitation which soon overwhelms any feelings of empathy toward or even interest in the plight of the main character.

This is possibly the worst film I have ever sat through. Excruciatingly dull, watching this film ultimately became a pointless exercise in endurance. It is extraordinary that a movie like this, with a nearly non-existent plot and sub-amateur production values, could ever have been released.

While attending film festivals, I make it a point to watch as many good,sensible,meaningful films possible.However there are certain occasions when I inadvertently end up watching bad films. My personal belief is that there are bad films and there are absolutely bad films which are eye sore. In a way bad films are not so bad because if all films were good than who in the world would go on to make a bad film. Watching an absolutely bad film is bad for a healthy mind as the ill effects of a bad film remain for a longer time.Missing directed by Lee Kang Sheng is such an absolutely bad film. It did not captivate the entire Makhmalbaf family who was also watching it with me. As a matter of fact mister Mohsen Makhmalbaf was seated in a row before mine. I can only make a wild guess at how much he must have suffered while watching this piece of nonsense.It is a different thing to act in a film and different thing to direct a film. Lee Kang Sheng got it wrong as his film is a bizarre attempt at garnering sympathy by portraying an old grand mother searching her young grand son. Makes no sense at all.

Don't try to explain to a friend what this movie is about, because it's not only about a woman running around and some other characters doing other things.

Try to explain him the way it made you feel. Try to explain him the subtle relations between characters and actions, even between characters of this and other films such as those of Tsai Ming Liang's (remember the grandpa and the little boy in "Goodbye, Dragon Inn"?), and you'll realize how difficult it is.

Now try to explain him the way you felt when your last girlfriend left you, when your dad died or you failed to make your daughter happy...

This is a fine film. Watch it. Feel it.

It's hard to watch 'The Missing' without thinking about Tsai Ming Liang, particularly as it is directed by the actor that Tsai "fetishises" in his films, Lee Kang Sheng. On the face of it, Lee's film is similar to many of Tsai's films - long, slow shots, a somewhat alienated camera aspect, and some familiar faces (for example Tien Miao, who plays the father figure in Tsai's films).

But 'The Missing' deals with the emotional predicaments of the characters in a very different way to say 'Bu San' (released at the same time). Here, the unrelenting long takes give the character's emotions a rawness, yet we are left with a feeling of loneliness, rather than intimacy. Lee also opts for a more conventional, even "Western", story pattern.

While it lacks the cinematic genius of Tsai Ming Liang's work, it is a fine debut, emotive and sensitively explored, and Lee's experience as an actor has well equipped him to produce some excellent performances from his cast, particularly from his lead actress.

I agree with my Czech buddy: this is a total waste of time---an inept, pretentious, boring, ugly distortion of life. A wretched exploitation film.

What does it exploit? To name a few: (1) the wretchedness of old-age loneliness; (2) our guilt at finding the characters somewhat annoying and ourselves less than full-heartedly sympathetic; (3) the tolerance of art-house audience for inadequate narrative and threadbare characterization.

You would think that out of the extraordinary tedium and pointlessness, something unusual may be found; originality of any kind can nevertheless be the last saving-grace. But none is to be found. The bag of tricks is pretty flat: oh yes, Lee did see his Kieslowski alright. There is a scattering of visual clues that re-emerge from time to time, as in "Red", and we may pick up as glue to tie the nondescript narrative together. The painted canvas, the shreds of newspapers, the rear mirror view from a motor cycle, etc. And in case you think Lee is not well-versed in Brunuel, the deliberate voyeurism of the camera placement is supposed to make us roll over and extol the virtue of a new auteur.

But art is not the sum of trickery. Punishing one's audience does not warrant worship. Not all of us are masochistic.