I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2007)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

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.

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.

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.

"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.