I've seen a lot of movies and this might very well be my favourite ... it just gets me, probably because of how much I identify with Hsiao-kang and May Lin. It was my first taste of "slow cinema" and of minimalist film, and I loved it. I've seen it many times now. It's meditative and sad and funny. Nobody does loneliness and anomie like Tsai Ming-liang.
But please be aware of what you're getting into before you watch this film and leave a 1-star review. Slow cinema is not for everyone. For some people, watching this movie will be like picking up difficult poetry when all they've ever read up until that point was popular fiction. Vive L'Amour is not the most inaccessible work from Tsai Ming-liang, but it is not accessible to the average person who expects a certain level of pacing and noise and motion from a film (there is barely a line of dialogue in the film's first 20 minutes). Ideally, audiences should dabble in more accessible art house films before coming to slow cinema. Or they should check out Tsai's Rebels of the Neon God before this.
But please be aware of what you're getting into before you watch this film and leave a 1-star review. Slow cinema is not for everyone. For some people, watching this movie will be like picking up difficult poetry when all they've ever read up until that point was popular fiction. Vive L'Amour is not the most inaccessible work from Tsai Ming-liang, but it is not accessible to the average person who expects a certain level of pacing and noise and motion from a film (there is barely a line of dialogue in the film's first 20 minutes). Ideally, audiences should dabble in more accessible art house films before coming to slow cinema. Or they should check out Tsai's Rebels of the Neon God before this.