Millennium Mambo
Why we chose this film
Once in a while there comes a moment when we can’t help but to look back into our past.
Look back at a time when we transitioned into adulthood.
Many of us left our villages, towns or even countries to start a new life.
To create a new identity.
We experienced things we have never encountered before.
We met our first true loves and convinced ourselves that it will last forever.
Most of us can certainly recognise parts of our young selves in Vicky, the main protagonist in Millennium Mambo.
Seeing ourselves in others helps us to relate.
The absence of judgement allows us to show true empathy.
In the end, we all have a lot more in common than we think.
Film Summary
This is the first of a series of films Hou has decided to make about latterday life in Taipei, and it traverses the story of Vicky, a young woman who doesn't know what to do with her ife but at least has a surer sense of where she is going than the long-term lover (Hao-Hao) with whom she lives. He is unemployed, obsessively jealous and capable of almost anything in his efforts to keep her. He checks her charge accounts, examines her mobile phone messages and even sniffs her to discover where she's been. It is only a matter of time before she decides that, when she has used up her savings of 500,000 Taiwanese dollars, it will be time to leave.
Her one true friend is an older man called Jack, a shady businessman she met in the club where she works. He doesn't seek a physical relationship with her, but when his business dealings get him into trouble, he decides to leave for Japan. She can, he suggests, come too, if and when she likes.
The film is shot mostly in close-up, which is rare for Hou, whose mid-shots are famous, and it has a commentary spoken by Vicky herself from the distance of 2010. So the story is told in hindsight, and the title expresses the mood of the turn of the century. It's a kind of mambo around relationships and the search for happiness and meaning.
Derek Malcolm | The Guardian
