In Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), there’s an obvious contrast between the 1960s wuxia film being screened, Dragon Inn, and the dilapidated cinema where its being shown; the faded film stock of adventure and action compared to the mundane stillness of empty cinema seats and rain dripping from the ceiling. Within Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s slow cinema style, the mundane stillness is rendered just as cinematic as a classic martial arts film through his framing and sense of space. For me, the static shot of the cinema lobby at night as it rains outside, water collecting out the front, is visually stimulating and absorbing; Goodbye, Dragon Inn is a very meditative experience, marked by emptiness and melancholy. This is the last night that the cinema is operating and there’s not much of an audience for this revival screening. Half of the handful of patrons seem to be there to cruise strangers for sex. One of the key feelings this movie produces is anticipation, particularly for the young Japanese tourist (Kiyonobu Mitamura) we follow, who continually tries to pick men up, and there is constant tension in the attempted passes and ignored signals. Meanwhile, a woman with a club foot (Chen Shiang-chyi) mainly operates the theatre by herself as the projectionist (Lee Kang-sheng) remains absent. This is pretty much a silent movie with most of the dialogue being what we hear in the 1960s martial arts movie. I watched a very decent copy on YouTube at home one night, and outside it started raining, providing a sensory surround experience, even if I wasn’t in a cosy, aged cinema theatre. I thought Goodbye, Dragon Inn was as great as people had always proclaimed. You can see why in that it offers Ming-Liang’s glacial arthouse approach at a short running time of 86 minutes, and it speaks to the power of movies and the cinematic experience by highlighting its faded ruin and degraded state, which balances and keeps in check the obvious nostalgic pull for the past. With comic moments of patrons eating wings loudly, or someone sticking their bare feet up on a seat, it doesn’t view the cinema experience as wholly transcendent; there’s something real and banal about the way other patrons are viewed, alongside its moments of ghostly hauntings and tearful reflection from forgotten movie stars. Definitely creates a space and a mood that feels inviting to return to, even in its rain-soaked sadness. Recommended.
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