Metacritic reviews

I confess my incapacity for his particular strain of slow cinema for two reasons: First, to let audiences know that it’s OK to be frustrated by the experience — you’re not alone. And second, so you might appreciate what it means that Days worked on me. Instead of leaning in, as I’m wont to do with challenging movies, I settled back into my chair and let the rhythm wash over me, lull me into its relaxing embrace.

Days becomes such a resonant addition to Tsai’s exhumed body of work because the filmmaker recognizes and embraces that uncharacteristically sentimental undertow; the last 30 minutes of this (relatively short) movie reward viewers who’ve spent the previous 90 minutes searching — reaching — for a souvenir they might be able to take away from it.

The film’s minimalist aesthetic makes little concession to the usual forms of cinematic expression and extends to the set design: living spaces devoid of furniture, the nondescript hotel room, the typical street scenes. The two actors are similarly inexpressive, their faces blank as though personal interaction was a major risk.

In a film lasting a shade over two hours, consisting of just 46 separate shots, the undisputed emperor of Taiwanese slow cinema crafts a ravishing, wordless story of urban loneliness.

Tsai’s motives for stretching his shots become clear after a while, and the film builds an uncanny mood.

Formally, Tsai’s approach is as spare as possible while still maintaining a loose sense of narrative.

Reciprocity might be impossible in a world rigged against queerness, Tsai seems to say, which doesn’t mean that certain things can't still be shared.

To watch Days in the context of this long-running creative partnership is to bring memories of the men, all more similar than not, that Lee has played before for Tsai; his weariness here carries the weight of a lifetime of relevant roles, almost a franchise arc of alienation and regret.

A mesmerizing exercise in the mundane, Days is almost completely free of dialogue — and intentionally unsubtitled for this reason — inducing a kind of calm hypnotic state that makes the viewer even more aware of the sharp stabs of loneliness felt by his longtime muse Lee Kang-sheng.

It will sound like sacrilege, but Days could be the rare case of a Tsai Ming-liang film that doesn’t ever quite connect up and one that might even benefit from some cutting back.