Stray Dogs (2014)

Fantastic!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

see this movie if u have nothing to see, then u won't want to see any more art films.waste of time.2 hours, no dialogues, no script.pathetic movie.the good thing about the movie are it's cinematography and costume design.if it made as a short film it would be far better than this thing.

I first came across Tsai Ming Liang's film when I was watching the "walking on water" short film, part of the monk walking series. I was blown away because it was showing together with award winning directors short film across Asia. While the rest of the directors was telling stories, Tsai's unique style was distinctive. My impression was "slow" and "long" and didn't quite understand what he was telling through his short. It was not a lousy work but it did left me stumped. I did not know film could be made that way.2 years later, I heard a lot about "Stray Dogs", his latest feature length movie and watched it last night. Again you can see his unique style of slowness in this film but I began to understand what the director is trying to do. Tsai is making film without the constraint of time. Time cannot be a factor in his film. Although each take is long, I realised that the more crucial that particular scene, the longer he holds the shot. While every scene seems like a separate entity in itself, beautifully shot almost like painting but forms together to structure the story. I heard that he said this film was actually shot wider than the actual ratio we watched in cinema because he wanted the audience to see the environment around the characters. This brings me to understand why certain takes was so long. For e.g.. the scene where 2 men in ponchos in the rain holding the billboard. The director did not want us to just glance at these men but also the surrounding..how the people were driving passed them and don't even take noticed at all..how even more pathetic they are and perhaps men in this job are marginalised in the society. When all the vehicles drove away you see even more men like them in the background. Not sure if the surroundings are staged or real but I could feel a deep sense of helplessness in them. These are the thoughts that went through my mind while I was watching. if it were to be a 10-20sec scene, I would not have taken this scene seriously.The story is so simple that there really isn't a plot at all. Instead he used his characters to drive the film. His characters redefine what is acting. They bring realism to their characters that I cannot tell if they are trained actors or people that really lived through that lives. I could tell from some of the long takes that the characters are developing the emotion..they are dictating the pacing and the rhythm. Thus it is not just a long dull shot. If you walked away and come back at the same scene, it feels different already. Which I feel why no prominent music or soundtrack is used in the film is because it might actually affect the pacing of what he envisioned. He let the ambiance of the environment set the mood.While many felt the film is too long, I felt otherwise because it is precisely there are many long takes meaning lesser clips piecing the film together. I think the director faces the problem of choosing the right moment in each clip instead of choosing the right shot. For eg. the scene where the lead actor eating his lunch. The scene shows he was actually eating halfway already which i thought felt very awkward for me.Are all the female characters suppose to connect and symbolised something? Or they are playing out different scenario setup by the director in each act? It is not clear and i guess it can be either ways leaving it to open interpretation. My only concern is perhaps the significant of the painting on the wall. It is a beautiful painting though. Not sure the reason why the director did very little close up shot. Perhaps it is to create a distance between us and the characters. The only ones I remembered were with the lead actor. Every close-up shot done on him was brilliant. The long scene of him holding the billboard and singing probably is a defining moment and made me realised how good his acting is. Probably also the toughest shot for the actor himself. Most of the wide shot made me felt like i'm actually standing at a distance observing the characters much like how I observed people in my daily life. On the side note, this film won the 50th Golden Horse Award Best Director & Best Actor.We are too used to the conventional storytelling way in movies. Fast pace, fast cut and many things going on at same the time, feeding us directly the stories and emotion. You cannot be conscious of time when watching this film. Instead of telling you the moral of the story, he lets you decides your takeaway. The more acceptive you are to his film, the more you can draw.In conclusion, I think Tsai does not conform to the filmmaking industry. His approach to filmmaking can be hard to comprehend and many a times illogical and pretty random but it is beginning to stand out and open the doors to more possibilities and perception of what film can do. Having said all that, I'm looking forward to watching his future and past works!

tsai ming liang is a director or should you even say an auteur who is really a strange bird in Chinese or in world cinema. this movie continues his same oddball line of work. it is perfectly suited for a highbrow art-house film lover who knows how to appreciate the overly and painfully long scenes completely incomprehensible storytelling and heavy symbolism all of which are mixed together to create an utterly boring movie that lasts more than two hours. the spectators gluteus maximus muscles are put to a tough test to get through the yawning experience...director's previous works have been as peculiar or even more peculiar as this movie (to say the least - in "he liu" made in 1997 the father and son even end up in the same bed to have sex!) so i strongly recommend them only to a very elitist (western) viewer who wants to have recognition for his/her excellent taste (to get totally bored) and who still thinks postmodernism is a relevant mode to make movies.it is indeed a real pity because i think the story could have had relevance to tell something important and revealing about taiwanese society but now all the potential substance to make a point is mostly wasted.

This is a reflexive movie. Probably, it's not for everyone out there. It's one of the most slow paced movies I've ever seen. There are scenes that have a load of anguish and desperation that I never experienced in any other movie recently. This movie makes you stop for a moment and meditate about your very everyday life. The only "friendly" scene in the entire movie is when the kids start to pick up names for the piece of cabbage they have. There are scenes that seemed to take forever and you're invited to come along and enjoy the dark tranquility. Paradoxically, it causes you a feeling of discomfort because we don't really know if we are really relaxed with everything. Sometimes, silence and tranquility can be deceiving.This movie came to remind us about our loss of serenity in our very everyday lives. It tests you to the point of you feeling uncomfortable before the long, looong, loooooooooong takes. It's not only just a movie, it's a deep experience within our own selves, our sanity, our capacity of taking a seat, stop for a moment and look beyond the environment that surrounds us, for us to enjoy the little simpler things, to ignore the noise, the problems and everything, stop going so fast and face the view, the silence and face our own existence, our moments, to make our peace with our own time again.And I really hope that I can do this again at some moment in my life. Because life is going in such a hurry and such a speed that we kinda lost track of ourselves. So it was a worthy and rewarding experience. Once again, and this time at last, because it was the last movie, I thank the SESC's "37º Festival International de Cinema de São Paulo" event for an appropriate and decent closure and for another great film.