Forget all that talk of porn and pubic hair. Tsai Ming-liang's new movie, The Wayward Cloud, is about the state of being deeply disconnected. Much of the sex that's had here is either vicarious i.e. people watching porn, or laborious i.e. people making porn. They're disconnected people having disconnected sex. And amid such disconnections, two people are about to reconnect when they cross paths again in crazy Taipei city - so The Wayward Cloud is really a romance.
Hsiao-kang, once a watch vendor on a skywalk in the city, is now a porn actor. He's a guy who's mostly completely comfortable in his own skin. He's a dreamer. He's been in love with Shiang-chyi since he sold her a watch two movies ago in What Time Is It There? After she went to Paris, he spent his waking hours walking all around the city to reset clocks to Paris time.
She's been looking for him since she came home in the last movie The Skywalk Is Gone. She's a girl who knows how to have fun with her fantasies, even if it's as silly as pretending to be pregnant with a watermelon.
They meet again in The Wayward Cloud on a summer day in a park. (Cue to a celebratory, cheery Chinese oldie as lip-syncing actresses dance all around a Sun Yat-sen statue.)
That night, they say their good-byes at the door of the lift at her lift lobby. Door closes. She's still so blissed out from seeing him, she forgets to push the button for her floor. Door opens. He's rooted to the same spot...
Another night, they cook crabs together. Then they eat them together - almost orgasmically. Then he sinks under the table to smoke a cigarette - almost post-coitally. She slides down to the floor, too, and holds his cigarette with her toes, as he puffs on it...
Yet another night, they don't walk, they waltz through the city. She's barefoot and balancing on his feet. He leads her in small dance steps...
They don't talk. That's a tiresome rom-com tradition not necessary here.
