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Millennium Mambo (15*)

Nightlife: Ourselves, Our Spaces on Film

four young people sitting around a table drinking

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s hypnotic masterpiece plunges us into the techno-scored neon-lit nightlife of Taipei at the turn of the 21st century.

Our guide for this nocturnal tour is Vicky; the film is structured from within her consciousness, remembering her life of ten years earlier, when she was working as a bar hostess. Leading a drifting, neon-lit existence and bored with her possessive DJ boyfriend, she finds herself gravitating towards a gangster named Jack.

With long takes, slo-mo, and close-ups that linger on colours, lights and textures, Vicky’s memories of Taipei’s club scene are distilled into images of amazing radiance and the film as a whole has an appropriately druggy, trance-like feel.

Taiwan/France 2001 Dir Hsiao-Hsien Hou 105 min 35mm presentation

 

ScreenNotes

four young people sitting around a table drinking

Screen Notes: Nightlife

We embark on a noctural journey full of passion, transgression and joy as we look at these films exploring what happens in bars and clubs after dark.

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