I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006) User Reviews

Warmth and Hope in Sorching and Smoggy Kuala Lumpur

[pei_yin_lin · 8/10 · 23 May 2007]

What would you do l if you had to share an old flea-ridden mattress with a stranger in a scorching hot and humid Kuala Lumpur? How would you feel if you think you are sleeping with the person whom you feel attached to but realise that your rival in love is also in the bed? It's true that "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone", Tsai Ming-liang's 9th film and the first set in his hometown in Malaysia, is not a pleasant film to digest on a tranquil weekend. Yet I'm sure the gloomy reality won't prevent Tsai's fans or sensitive filmgoers from finding some hopeful and frivolous moments in the film. Superficially this slow-paced film explores the lives of lower-middle class workers and examines the reality of Kuala Lumpur as a multilingual and multiracial city. The best part of the film does not rest in the vivid representation of the workers and the city, but Tsai's passionate concern for human beings, especially their extremely simple wish to be loved and their fear of loneliness. Homeless Xiaokang (Lee Kang-sheng, the director's alter-ego) was robbed and beaten by swindlers in a rundown area of Kuala Lumpur, and brought home by Rawang, a Malay construction worker who is superbly played by Norman Atun. The kind Rawang lets Xiaokang sleep on an old mattress that he picks up from the street. Parallel to Rawang's nursing Xiaolang is the teahouse waitress Qi (Chen Xiangqi)'s taking care of the bed-ridden paralysed son of the teahouse owner (Pearly Chua). Unlike Rawang who finds stability and happiness in taking care of Xiaokang, Qi is desperate to seek for a new life, more than ever after her encounter with Xiaokang who awakens long repressed desires in her. The repressed middle-aged female teahouse owner is also attracted to the young body of Xiaokang, but astonishingly realises that Xiaokang's appearance bears resemblance to her son. Unexpected heavy smog from Indonesia begins to attack the city. In the seriously-polluted city, it is the common "syndrome" combination of loneliness, desire and longing for love and being loved that bring all the characters together. The chosen music is a significant supplement to the limited dialogue. The multi-racial background of immigrants in Kuala Lumpur is introduced through an aural mosaic of Malay folksongs, Chinese songs, Cantonese operas, and Bollywood music. You can easily identity the workers' ethnic background from what they listen, though of course also from the way they eat and dress. Even the rhythm of daily life in Kuala Lumpur is revealed through the sound. The noise from water-inserting in the building site where Rawang works is placed against the vague sound of Alazan from a Mosque. The local-styled coffee shop (kopitiam) is boisterous with mahjong playing sound, Malay news reporting, multilingual chatting sounds from the customers, and even the sound of plastic bags when the waitress Qi wraps up takeaway food for the customers. The lively scene on the ground floor is in drastic contrast to the silence of the first floor where the shop owner's comatose son (also played by Li Kang-sheng) lies motionlessly. The Cantonese love-story opera and the old Chinese love song ingeniously reflect the forlorn characters' emerging desires. Caught either in a poor or repressed situation, the characters all wriggle with intense desire, and endeavour to build connections with people. Despite all the alienations (Rawang is isolated from his peer workers and sticks to Xiaokang) and frustrations (Qi and Xiaokang's clumsy attempt to make love in masks), there is always a solution. After all, happiness can be enormously simple, such as merely owning a mattress and nursing a stranger until he recovers. Bearing Tsai's familiar stylistic conceits such as long takes and a static camera, usual concerns on the alienation and yearning of human beings and must-have scenes such as running water and sex, "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" however treats isolation as part of human nature, instead of a syndrome caused by the ultra-modernised environment as in Tsai's earlier films. Once again, Tsai proved he is one of those love-him-or-hate-him auteurs as applauses and criticisms were both heard when I walked out of the cinema. If I were to choose between the two poles, I would go for the former simply because of Tsai's minimalist techniques and meditative sensitivity. Despite not as amusing as "Hole", or as tense as "Wayward Cloud", "A Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is easily Tsai's most warmhearted film to date.

Let It Calms You Down, Search For What You Want.

[samuelding85 · 8/10 · 2 April 2007]

I've attended the Singapore gala premier of Tsai Ming Liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone 3 hours ago, and here's the verdict: The movie calms you down, and let it search for you want. That's what the supporting actress Pearlly Chua said to the audience before the movie begins. And indeed, it calms you down.

Tsai's 1st attemp in his country of origin Malaysia has proved to be a success, despite being banned by the government back in Malaysia for portraying the other side of Malaysia, where it so happens that 2007 is a significant year for Malaysia, as it is a year where Malaysia is drawing people around the world to visit Malaysia for its beauty and unique blend of culture. However, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone tells the other side of Malaysia, in terms of the lifestyle of Malaysian Chinese and Bangladeshi workers and the surroundings, makes the government feel that the film is damaging the image of the country.

And why is that so? In the film, were were introduced to a homeless man and a paralyzed man (both played by Lee Kang Sheng, Tsai's muse cum favorite actor), a foreign worker (Norman Atun), a waitress in a neighborhood cafe (Chen Hsiang Chyi) and her lady boss (Pearlly Chua), who was the mother of the paralyzed man. The homeless man was robbed by a group of thugs and was saved by a group of foreign workers. A worker showers care and concern for the homeless man and gave him food and lodge, and a share of the old mattress found at a garbage dump. On the other side, waitress works in a neighborhood cafe and takes care of the paralyzed man. The homeless man met the waitress and share the feelings for each other by following each other around in the neighborhood.

Compared to his previous The Wayward Cloud, a musical that discuss sex, desire and crave for one another in a unusual manner (think of using watermelons to express love), Tsai is going back to his usual style of presentation in I Don't Want. Do not expect any dialogues among the cast, let alone the expression of love for each other using songs and dance. What you get is 115 minutess of peace, without any music to go along with. What you see and hear are sounds from the surroundings in our daily life. Think scrubbing of dirty clothes, the honks in a crowded traffic, songs from radio stations and Indian musicals from a home video shop.

The film greatly explores the cravings and desires every human being wants. The worker isolates himself from his peers and stick with the homeless man, the homeless man follows the waitress and eventually, the lady boss had sex with the homeless man at the backyard. Tsai uses the emotional world of ordinary human beings to explore the desires and cravings thru something that one tend to missed out from the daily life.

For moviegoers who finds 3 minutes of motionless scenes a drag, I Don't Want is definitely not a film for you. At the start of the movie, we see a paralyzed man lying motionlessly on a bed for about 2 minutes. And be prepared that for the next few scenes, it would be focused for an average of 2 minutes per scene.

And so I Don't Want works out under this formula: Malaysian film + Tsai Ming Liang = I Don't Want To Sleep Alone.

Overall, it is peaceful and quiet, without much dialogues to go along with. If you are getting tired of normal noisy flicks, let I Don't Want to Sleep Alone to cleanse your preference of movies.

Go see it. You will feel calm after the show. Malaysian film + Tsai Ming Liang = I Don't Want To Sleep Alone.

Slow, minimalist &hypnotic

[wandering-star · 6/10 · 17 September 2006]

Director Tsai Ming-Liang sets this film in his native Kuala Lumpur. Hsaio-Kang (Kang-sheng Lee) is beaten up by street hustlers and is carried back to a abandoned half-completed building, home to the homeless and downtrodden, by a group of Bangladeshi men. There he is meticulously, even lovingly, brought back to health by Rawang (Norman Bin Atun), where they share a salvaged, stained flea-ridden mattress.

Once his strength comes back, Hsaio-Kang ventures out and meets waitress Chyi (Shiang-chyi Chen) and her older boss (Pearlly Chua). Chyi is made to care for a bed-ridden paralyzed man.

One of the interesting aspects of this film is the depiction of a poor district of Kuala Lumpur: multilingual (Malay, Bangladeshi, Mandarin), hopelessly derelict, dirty, and run-down. The characters silently struggle to survive day-to-day, and strive to make human connections with one another amid their squalor.

The central abandoned half-finished concrete office building, with its exposed rebar and flooded basement, is a perfect set.

A haze descends on the city, a result of fires in far-off Indonesia, which sets the stage for a tragi-comic attempt between Chyi and Hsaio-Kang to make love while wearing improvised surgical masks and through hacking coughs.

This minimalist film moves very slowly, lingering on each shot for sometimes one or two minutes. Simple acts such as washing a paralyzed man's face, or a cigarette enjoyed next to the flooded basement's pool, become almost hypnotic.

All that said, when I walked out of the theatre, I was sure I did not like this film, due to the slow pace and almost total lack of spoken dialog. But the next day I found myself thinking of the film all day long, its characters and silent relationships. Maybe in that sense, this film accomplished its goal.

Proud to differ

[author-21 · 10/10 · 24 June 2007]

I am always a little surprised to see negative reviews of Tsai Ming-Liang films in web communities populated by film enthusiasts. And that's not because I'm about to argue that all film enthusiasts should like Tsai Ming-Liang movies, far from it. Rather, what surprises me is that film enthusiasts -- people motivated enough to have IMDb logins and, further, motivated enough to write reviews -- would be unfamiliar enough with Tsai Ming-Liang and his work, prior to viewing any particular film, that they could end up being surprised by what they get. Like all of Liang's films, this is a very, very, VERY quiet movie. That's the whole point: long takes, minimal dialog, you get out of it what you're prepared to concentrate hard enough on to see the subtlety of. I own all of his films and I watch them again and again -- and that doesn't make me a better person than the other reviewer, either. He's an acquired taste and if you don't like quiet, light-brush-stroke movies you won't like this guy's stuff. But I can't imagine anyone not knowing all of that before they start, and then complaining about it afterward.

A quiet one for the serious cinephile

[paulmartin-2 · 6/10 · 5 August 2007]

This is a strange film, very strange, and not the type of film to get a release outside of a festival. There was virtually no dialogue for two hours - mostly visuals with background noises and music (played in the scene, not dubbed over). We see various strugglers in the streets and buildings of Malaysia and get a strong sense of alienation.

The film is almost a photo essay, constructed largely of beautifully composed shots of urban decay. There's the flooded building site, modest abodes, a huge butterfly and the surreal-looking streets choked in smoke from Indonesian bushfires. The film challenges an audience's patience and I was surprised there were only a few walkouts at the Melbourne International Film Festival I attended. My partner left after 90 minutes, and shortly after a little more action started to appear.

A sex scene interrupted by the smoke was amusing. The final take is particularly poignant and poetic. The film is not something I would generally recommend to mainstream audiences, but if you like something unusual during a festival, it might be worth a look in. Just be prepared to be patient.

Another Strong Piece of Work

[erahatch · 10/10 · 22 September 2006]

"What Time Is It There?" remains my favorite film by Tsai Ming-liang, but it's fascinating to follow his work and see how he builds his own imaginative world -- close to, but not exactly, our own -- film by film.

"I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" took me a little longer to get into than any prior film by the director, but by about the half-hour mark I was fully absorbed. Thankfully, "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" rewards patient viewers by reserving some fantastically humorous, mysterious, and even hypnotic moments for its last acts. Whereas in previous films, familiar visual tropes such as umbrellas and watermelons have played recurrent symbolic roles, here it's mattresses and anti-smoke facemasks, somehow used just as evocatively. Other obsessions -- dripping water, holes in floors and ceilings, mysterious and unspoken attractions -- recur here in ways that recall the director's previous works without depending upon them.

I wouldn't suggest curious viewers start with this film, but rather delve back as far back as possible into Tsai Ming-liang's back catalog and proceed from there -- easier than ever before to do now, what with the increased DVD availability of early gems such as "Rebels of the Neon God." For those unsure if they want to make that level of commitment, check out "What Time Is It There?" or "Goodbye Dragon Inn." But for the already converted, rest assured that "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is a strong, worthy addition to Tsai Ming-liang's body of work.

a window into a different place

[chuck-526 · 9 January 2015]

"I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is stylistically very different. It's composed of very long takes with an unmoving camera, has almost no dialog, no non-diegetic music, mostly either very long shots or closeups (few medium shots or sorta-long shots), and pacing often described as "extremly slow".

Its two interwoven stories start out separate, then slowly combine. The actor Lee Kang-Sheng plays the "Homeless Guy" in one story and the "Paralyzed Guy" in the other. Although both stories start out hyper-realistic, by the end the Homeless Guy story shows noticeable gaps and even seems a bit supernatural.

The film is "about" more than just one thing. For example the English title "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" and the Asian title literally translated as something like "eyes circled in black" are completely different ...but both refer to some central theme of the film.

Much attention is paid to bodily functions -including sex. There's little in the way of bare skin or conventional love scenes; it's not reminiscent of the "soft porn" of a few art movies. The attention isn't especially lascivious; in fact it's sometimes either a bit silly or just plain funny. The emphasis is definitely there though; is it really all in service of the stories, or has it been exaggerated (maybe for shock value?)?

The marvelous last shot is so long, slow, mysterious, and moody I immediately thought of Andrei Tarkovsky. (It requires many tens of seconds just to figure out where the heck you are and what you're looking at.) It sums up the entire film in one unforgettable image.

The DVD I got from Netflix -which seems to be the only version available to English speakers in Region 1- is awkward, but adequate. The subtitles are burned in, and have even more than the usual difficulties with slang and with song lyrics. Worse (and unfortunately like _many_ DVDs), the subtitles give no hint of what language is being spoken (Malay, Chinese, Bangladeshi ...maybe even Hindi?), not even when that's central to the story. There are no "bonus" materials. And aspect ratio jumps around oddly between Academy, letter-boxed, and fullscreen widescreen.

Because the style is so different, it's easy to jump to the mis-conclusion the stories too are "just plain weird". The truth is after just a little help with cultural translation, the stories are actually rather prosaic. You should know:

1) In many Asian countries with significant Chinese minorities, their stereotype is overly concerned with money, disconnected from the local culture, and morally stunted. This negative stereotype appears in the movie many times, beginning with the scam artist's apparent direction that anyone that doesn't speak Malay should be treated as a second class citizen and beaten more severely, and the comment that "the Chinese landlady would be very upset if she knew". It continues with the callous treatment of the nurse/waitress, and the almost exclusive focus on money -downplaying even possible emotional ramifications- when selling the house. It _might_ even account for a sexual attraction of the Chinese grandmother to her own son ...or at least to someone else who looks very similar.

2) The Malaysian economy was vigorous and developing rapidly for several decades in the last century, so much so that many young males from Bangladesh arrived as foreign workers. But that economy was wrecked by the Asian financial crisis beginning in the late 90s. Buildings in progress were abandoned (hence the flooded shell). And most of the foreign workers were stranded, unable to afford the transportation to go back home. And because many of them lacked either language skills or identification/permit papers, and had a different appearance, they were unable to "assimilate".

3) Not long after, a very nasty fight between politicians who used to work together was front and center in Malaysia. The former prime minister Anwar Ibrahim faced trials on trumped-up charges of sodomy. Because of police violence, he once appeared in court with black eyes (hence the Asian title of the movie). And introduced as evidence during the trials was a mattress, supposedly stained with his semen.

4) From everything seen in the film, the relationship between the Homeless Guy and Rawang can appear to be entirely platonic. But almost certainly the opposite was intended. A homosexual relationship could be hinted at only _very_ obliquely, partly because of censorship threats in Malaysia and partly because the actors were unwilling to be more explicit.

5) Many of the songs are either entirely western, or have clear western influences. (For example the busker's song lyrics seem to have originated in the old four-and-twenty-blackbirds nursery rhyme.) It's unclear just what this really means though. Maybe it's just hyper-reality. Or maybe it's meant to show the continuing pervasive influence of western culture. Or maybe it's nothing more than a shout-out to those paying the bills - the film was "commisioned" by the New Crowned Hope festival, Vienna's celebration of Mozart.

6) Haze and wafting smoke in Kuala Lumpur (in fact in much of Southeast Asia) because of huge forest fires in Indonesia is not "symbolic" - it really did happen in summer 2006. Fortunately Tsai Ming-Liang was able to incorporate it seamlessly into his stories, as otherwise he might have had to suspend filming for months.

7) An interpretation of the structure of the film is that Paralysed Guy is real, but the stories about Homeless Guy are his dreams. This immediately makes the duplication of the lead actor meaningful. Clearly Tsai Ming-Liang really wants to tell the Homeless Guy story, as it's far too lengthy and detailed and embellished to be "just a dream". Yet the thematic connections are actually there. Even though some of the details don't fit all that well, as an overarching schema this view makes more sense than anything else.

Probably my least favorite Tsai film, but still very good

[zetes · 7/10 · 18 November 2007]

This may be Tsai's first film set and made in his homeland of Malaysia, but he doesn't stray at all from Tsaiville. Which isn't much of a problem, really, if you're a fan of the director. Sure, we could complain that he's been hitting the same notes for eight features now, but there are artists in every medium that are like this. Either we get sick of it, or we like it and we stick with it. I'm sticking with Tsai. His moods and rhythms haunt my mind. He captures images like no other director, and he's definitely one auteur whose work you could identify from just one shot (granted, you have about ten times as many frames in that one shot as you do in your average auteur's work!). I Don't Want to Sleep Alone is probably my least favorite of all of his films (all of which I've seen except his previous, The Wayward Cloud – I've seen the first five minutes and am aching to finish it). This is mostly because I wasn't too sure what was going on through much of it. The plot seems to concern a young Chinese man (played by Tsai's boytoy/regular Lee Kang-sheng) who gets beaten senseless in Kuala Lumpur. A construction worker saves him and nurses him back to health, mostly with lustful intentions. But when the Chinese man is up and about, he goes off and sleeps with some women, which understandably pisses off his savior. Then there was a bunch of stuff I didn't quite understand, notably a guy in a coma (also played by Lee Kang-sheng). A lot of my favorite shots involved that guy, but I'm not 100% sure what was going on in that plot line. The images here are top notch, and though there is little dialogue, Tsai's use of sound – and music – is wonderful. Much as Tsai uses Taipei, Kuala Lumpur is an area of urban alienation. Late in the film smoke drifts over from a nearby Sumatran forest fire, covering the city with a thick haze. Many of the scenes are set in a crumbling building (not quite sure what this was all about, really), which reminds me of the post-apocalyptic landscape in my favorite Tsai film, The Hole. I actually think I might have enjoyed this more had I watched it when I was less tired. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I want to give it another chance with the awful DVD, courtesy of Strand Releasing. It's cropped, for one thing. The image also looks a lot less crisp than any of Tsai's other films, though that may have been his stylistic choice this time around.

Oddly Touching

[crossbow0106 · 8/10 · 6 September 2008]

Let me start off by saying I am a Tsai Ming-Liang fan, having seen just about all of his films. He is a master of the long shot, as well as telling a story with minimal dialogue. This story is about a street person (Tsai's muse Lee Kang-Sheng), who gets beaten up by a gang. He gets rescued by Bangaladeshi immigrants, who take him back to where they live (it is not a home, more like a construction site). They nurse him back to health. His character (the characters are not named, an interesting way of telling the story) meets and also spends time with a waitress (Chen Shang-Chyi, a pretty veteran of Liang films). This causes jealousy, both with the immigrant who saved him and the mother of the waitress. The mother and daughter also care for an invalid, bed ridden brother, who is also played by Lee Kang-Sheng. This story, set in Tsai's home country of Malaysia, is indeed oddly touching, an exploration of loneliness, the need for human contact, jealousy and survival. This is not for everyone, certainly not lovers of action and fast moving films. All of Tsai's films are slow and methodical, and this one has a heart. He is fairly unique in his storytelling, I like that emotions can be conveyed with so little said. I always liked the combination of Keng-Shang and Shang-Chyi as a couple in his films, they seem very comfortable with each other. That being said, check out these Tsai films first for a primer into his style: "The River", "What Time Is It There" and "The Hole". I liked this, the film has heart.

A Nutshell Review: I Don't Want to Sleep Alone

[DICK STEEL · 2/10 · 9 April 2007]

I don't want to sleep alone - if you have incredible patience, then you probably won't have to. Otherwise, within 10 minutes, you'll fall into deep sleep, as did somebody in the same screening I went to. I have put off writing the review to see if my opinion would change, and I dare say it has mellowed down. I would have loved to condemn this Tsai Ming-Liang movie, but just like any other movie, its bound to have its lovers and detractors. I for one, disliked the film, but acknowledge its technical merits.

Simply put, the movie tells 2 stories, one involving a man (played by Tsai's muse Lee Kang- Sheng) being attacked by gangsters, and taken in and cared for by a construction worker (Norman Atun), while the other story involves a comatose man (also starring Lee) being nursed by Chyi (Chen Shiang-Chyi), a coffeeshop waitress working for Pearlly Chua's sexually repressed coffeeshop owner. In classic Tsai style, these stories are told in long, static shots, little or no dialogue, and through songs. The usual themes of alienation, repression, loneliness etc (fill in the blanks, you know the themes already) is commonplace in the movie, so much so that they become turn offs.

At times you wonder if it's a comedy of absurdity, and if the movie is a waste of film and resources. You also scratch your head wondering if those who have praised the movie sky high are out of their minds, or if they're following the bandwagon and praising the emperor's new clothes. However, I did enjoy the first few minutes of the movie when Lee's wandering man walked around the seedier streets of KL. In fact, there isn't really much clues that it's KL, it can be Geylang for all you care. And possibly every dark corner and roadside become commonplace as the narrative moves along.

If anything, Tsai is an inspiration, for his minimalist art form that makes as if almost anyone could pick up a camera, gather some actors (or friends with zero facial expression - you can mask them, or film from across the road so there are no close up shots to betray their lack of ability) around, and make something out of nothing. Just as how crazy men are called eccentric rather than mad if they have power and money, you'll just have to convince that you're an auteur with an amazing eye for details, instead of being called a crap filmmaker if you try and emulate his style.

To some it's pretentious, to others it's a contemporary classic in the works. The only way to best judge if you would like the movie, is to watch it yourself. Just be warned that you'll either be enamoured by it, or come out swearing every vulgarity you've ever known. I sure heard many colourful words when the mattress started to float. If compared to his previous work The Wayward Cloud, I'd find that a masterpiece. But then again, I've always liked my movies with song, dance, things that move, not just a reluctant handjob.

Will I watch future Tsai's works? Sure, if only as a test of true patience, for film school lessons and references, and to share in the perverse joy of listening out for newbies to Tsai movies as they exercise their freedom of colourful speech. They are a vocal bunch after all. Recommended only for hard core Tsai fans, and no one else.

Buddhist to the extreme in the belief life always wins

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 9 June 2008]

This Chinese Taiwanese film is depicting the life of young people in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It is showing one of these tigers of Asia in their development at a crucial moment when things seem to be halted and yet they go on maybe just at a slower pace. But people remain what they are, people with human values. They will help a man who had fainted on the sidewalk. They will wash him, feed him, take care of him just as if he was one of the family, though he is unknown. They will take care of a man who is absolutely reduced to a vegetable state, unresponsive, and yet there, alive even if totally blank. And then the impulses of the women or of the men are the same as everywhere in the world, and yet what these young people really want is not that instantaneous and future-less of not futile moment of bliss. They want to be close to someone else, feeling his or her heart and blood pressure and emotions and sentiments and heat, share that feeling and just sleep into it, dream into it. Let's go beyond this world of imperfection and never satisfied failure or success, it does not matter. Let's get into the deep mellowness of empathy, sympathy, compassion, sharing and gathering our minds and all our senses into some kind of communion that is one step closer to the path to enlightenment. That's what at least the Buddha in the café tells me, though we see him from the back and Buddhism is only second to Islam in Malaysia, but the two religions have that thing in common that the mind and the heart are only one same thing and they are the only guides that can take us to a higher more humane level of humanity. And that is all contained in that big mattress they find on the sidewalk and they transport together from one place to another with only one intention, to share it, to use it together. A mattress as a symbol of the Buddhist Dukkha, that never ending cycle from birth to rebirth and every time some people abandon the mattress, it dies, but then some other people come and give it a new life through a rebirth of love.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Definitely not life-altering

[tzeyingw · 1/10 · 4 June 2008]

Honestly, I can't bring myself to like this movie, though I've to admit that the cinematography is gorgeous, and Lee Kang-sheng was very believable as the brain-dead patient. Many of the long, static scenes, especially the ones with the dark pool and the brain-dead patient with his urine bag, are completely pointless, and the scene with the lady boss masturbating the brain- dead man with Chen Xiang-chyi's hand filled me with disgust. I know it is a film that can't be judged by normal standards, but what's disgusting is disgusting, whether it's in the name of art or whatever. I really don't understand what kind of message Tsai Ming-liang was trying to convey in many of the scenes, and I doubt whether he himself knew what he was doing. Most of the time it just seems like a hodgepodge of random (and meaningless) ideas pieced together. OK, it's made by an auteur and it's supposed (or I should say, normal?) to be so, but it's definitely not what we called good story-telling. The relationships depicted here are so unclear (there's nothing apart from lust), and I find the characters (except the one played by Norman Atun) hard to sympathize with. The healthy Lee Kang-sheng was a dreadful hypocrite (not to mention being an ungrateful bastard), and the other two women are just soulless, sexually dissatisfied characters that afford some erotic excitement in the movie.

Melancholic

[ale_cya · 9/10 · 6 July 2018]

This movie is so sweet in an odd way. You can see the struggle of each character to find love and companion in a difficult environment. Locations are oddly satisfying

Tsai Ming-liang Repeats Himself

[liehtzu · 1 November 2006]

Pusan Film Festival Reviews 7: I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang)

I haven't seen Tsai's last film, "The Wayward Cloud," but I'm happy to report that "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is better than his appallingly dull and pretentious "Goodbye, Dragon Inn," even if it's got nothing on Tsai's best work of the '90s, "Vive L'amour" and "The Hole." "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" represented the mummification of Tsai's style - the stretches of silence and static scenes where nothing happens, which had served him so well in his early career but with each passing film threatened to get old, finally found their ultimate negative expression. Tsai continues to grind his wheels with the new film, though it's hardly as unbearable as "Goodbye, Dragon Inn." The problem is that Tsai's style was something of a revelation when he made "Vive L'amour" - though it felt a little like a Taiwanese version of an Antonioni film it was actually a deadpan comedy, with a wickedly tragic twist at the end that turned like a knife you didn't even realize was stuck in your ribs all the while.

I hoped that a change of scenery might do Tsai good, and it was interesting to hear that "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" was shot in Malaysia, where Tsai was born. I wanted to ask him some questions after the screening about the differences he may have felt shooting in Malaysia, but unfortunately, like the Bruno Dumont session, questions were asked in Korean translated to the director's native language, and I don't speak much Korean, French or Chinese. No one speaks much in Tsai's new film (of the three main characters only one is ever heard to utter a word), there are frank and disturbing sexual scenes, and there are several shots of people walking slowly down darkened corridors or alleyways. All this has become a mannerism - rather than communicate incommunicability the lack of dialogue feels like an art film pretension now, rather than be shocking the sexual scenes strike anyone familiar with the director's past work as been-there-done-that, and the long static shots of people walking just serve no purpose whatsoever. Unfortunately much of Tsai Ming-liang's new film feels stale.

tedious, dull art film

[Buddy-51 · 4/10 · 3 January 2009]

Tsai Ming Liang's "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is yet another of those Spartan-like, minimalist Asian films (this one happens to be Chinese) that is composed almost entirely of single-take medium and long shots (this movie would have made Andre Bazin and his fellow theorists at Cahiers du Cinema jump for joy, or, at the very least, purr with contentment). The problem with such a style, beyond testing the patience of the audience, is that it distances us so much from what is happening on screen that we soon become dispassionate observers rather than the engaged participants we need to be if we are to become fully enveloped in the story. In fact, most of the time we can't figure out who anybody is or why we should be interested in anything that is going on in their lives. If this movie proves anything, it is just how essential close-ups and inter-scene cutting can be in helping us to identify with and care about a character and the situation he's going through.

As far as I can tell, the theme is about a handful of urban youth who feel isolated and alienated from one another and the world around them, but who are taking some faltering steps towards reaching out and bridging that gap, mainly through touching. But the almost total lack of dialogue and the chillingly clinical style of film-making make it frankly impossible for us to tell WHAT the movie makers' intentions might be.

There are a few erotically-charged moments in the film, but overall "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" is an excursion into tedium that gives "art films" a bad name.

"Art is long, life is short," too short to endure this movie

[azjerry-31890 · 1/10 · 21 November 2022]

"I Don't Want To Sleep Alone" was the second film by Tsai Ming-Liang, and the first one I saw complete. (I walked out on "Visage.") Like "Visage," this is more about the idea of cinema than a movie with a dramatic arc. The characters aren't named, they barely speak, and their motivations are never explained, only inferred. Takes only seem endless because often there's no action. There's so little dialogue that he must have been paying the scriptwriter by the word.

Water plays an important part, as it does in "Visage" and "The Wayward Cloud," because why not? Water is important, even archetypal. That must be why one character, searching for another, takes a staircase to a flooded level in a deserted parking garage. The actor seemed genuinely surprised when she stepped into the water. That got a laugh, which may not have been the intention.

Tsai likes to include lip-synched production numbers to Chinese pop songs. In "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone" that is how the movie ends, though it isn't much of production. In place of a costumed chorus and dance moves that he featured in "The Wayward Cloud," it's just a mattress floating in the water while the music plays. To be accurate, the movie doesn't end; it just stops.

If this is the sort of movie you like, then you'll definitely like "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone." Otherwise, stay far, far away from this and Tsai Ming-Liang's other films.

Lingering thoughts from I Don't Want To Sleep Alone

[nycbase-studio · 27 May 2007]

When I left the theater two nights ago after seeing I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, a woman exiting with a friend in front of me turned to her companion and said "I'm so sorry, I thought it would be good"....but to me it was good, if not excellent. This movie is really such a great example of how film can define one's aesthetics. You like slow movies or you don't. You like people wearing plastic trash bags over their mouths while attempting love-making or you don't. You like subtle expressions of desire or you don't. Tsai's films let you do the exploration, instead of having a tour-guide with a megaphone pointing out the most important highlights of the experience.

Funny, a few years ago when I saw Lost In Translation a similar thing happened. A young couple leaving the theater talked about how nothing happened in that movie and how boring it was. At precisely the same time I was thinking how moving the film had been to me.

See the film--you might find it boring but I would be surprised if you don't think about it a lot more after viewing it than almost any Hollywood blockbuster.

Enough to put you to sleep.

[MOscarbradley · 3/10 · 5 September 2019]

People sleep quite a lot in Ming-Liang Tsai's "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone", be it alone or together and if you hear snoring in the cinema you might find it's not only on the screen that people are sleeping. Few films lasting two hours are about so little or move so slowly. The plot, if there is one, could be written on the back of a very small envelope and for all that happens on the screen, the movie could quite easily be cut by about 75% without losing anything.

Fundamentally, it's about one man nursing another back to health while elsewhere two women look after a young man in a coma. No-one says very much though it would appear that these two strands do come together at the end. It's certainly well photographed and there's definitely a palpably hot-house atmosphere on display but it's also impossible to feel anything for any of the characters and you may feel your time might have been better spent at home taking a well-deserved nap.