JOURNEY TO THE WEST 

Xi You

Taiwan, France 2014  56 min

DIRECTOR: Tsai Ming Liang

SCREENPLAY: Tsai Ming Liang

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Antoine Heberlé

CAST: Kang-sheng Lee, Denis Lavant

PRODUCTION: House on Fire, Neon Productions, Résurgences, Homegreen Films     

The film tells the story of a monk who wanders around the city. The camera follows his every move.  After a while another man joins him. The picture makes the viewer ponder reality. It is a kind of meditation in the world where everyone is chasing time. Tsai Ming Liang’s movie allows us to clear our minds, experience concentration and peace while wandering the streets of Marseilles. It’s like meditation experienced in the cinema. The screening of Journey to the West attracted crowds during the Berlinale film festival.

TSAI MING LIANG was born in 1957. In 1977 he started film studies at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. He worked as a theatre scriptwriter, director and producer. He debuted in 1992 with the feature The Rebels of the Neon God. His style was determined by well-known European directors such as François Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Robert Bresson. He often receives awards for his work. Tsai Ming Liang is called a representative of so-called Second New Wave in cinema.