Stray Dogs

Tsai Ming Liang's Stray Dogs nimbly balances upon the fine line between cinematic sublimity and art film monotony. I'm still kind of on the fence about this film myself. This 2013 film ostensibly follows the travails of homeless Taiwanese family of four struggling to survive. Dad is a sign waver at a busy intersection, Mom has a McJob at a Costco type emporium. They live in an abandoned apartment building. They scrounge what they can: the kids scarf up free samples at the super mart while Mom stocks up on toilet paper in the public facilities. Somehow they barely uphold their dignity within a bustling and unyielding capitalistic market place.

Yet, this film is not as cut and dried as a plot summary would make it appear. The takes are almost all long and fixed, sometimes lasting five minutes or so. Continuity is eschewed to the extent that three different actresses portray "Mom". The film is truly defined not by its fleeting narrative but by the director's utilization of space. The shots of the sign holders emphasize how little territory they are allotted in the sprawling metropolis. Every man is left to himself to burrow their own warren. Yet, Tsai Ming-liang also shows us beauty within negative space. The camera pans along a pock marked concrete wall as a fairy tale is read or focuses on the rustling river instead of a child. It all adds up, at least, to one distancing technique too many. 

As John Berryman in Dream Song #14 put it, "Life, friends, is boring." and modern art cinema has often explored boredom. Warhol looms large in this, of course, but Stray Dogs' sequence with Mom #2 scrubbing the tub reminded me of the numerous chores Delphine Seyrig plods through in Chantal Ackerman's Jeanne Dielman.... I'm sure most viewers will want to check out of Stray Dogs after the first hour and I will admit that I didn't get much out of the film conceptually after the first sixty minutes or so. Some surreal beauty emerges, though. Because the director shoots in real time with an objective, even dull gaze, the dream sequences are especially unsettling in their realness and tactility. Stray Dogs is an unsparing film the viewer must meet halfway, as if at an art installation.