The River – Queer East Film Festival 2024

Writers: Tsai Ming-liang, Tsai Yi-chun and Yang Pi-ying

Director: Tsai Ming-liang

The River is being screened as part of the Queer East Festival yet it is possible ‘queer’ might refer to the peculiar nature of the dysfunctional family members as much as the sexuality of the characters.

Hsiao-Kang (Lee Kang-sheng) bumps into an old Girlfriend (Chen Shiang-chyi) who is working on a movie being shot on the highly polluted the Tamsui river. The film’s Director (Ann Huei) persuades Hsiao-Kang to take the place of an unconvincing manikin and pretend to be a corpse floating face-down in the murky river.

Shortly thereafter Hsiao-Kang experiences excruciating pain whether this a metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases, judgement for not being true to his sexual identity or simply a pain in the neck is unclear. Hsiao-Kang’s parents try and help taking him to faith healers, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and even medical professionals without success. Finally, in a desperate search for relief Hsiao-Kang and his Father (Miao Tien) accidently breach a sexual taboo.

It is very hard for an audience to form an emotional connection with any of the characters in The River. Director Tsai Ming-liang (who wrote the film with Tsai Yi-chun and Yang Pi-ying) deliberately sets a remote, disaffected atmosphere. For starters only Hsiao-Kang has a name, all other characters are defined by their relationship to him (Girlfriend, Father, Mother) or their job title (Director).

There is no warmth between the family members, they are never shown behaving like a conventional family by, for example, sharing a meal at home. Father’s first appearance is in a bathhouse turning down the opportunity of sex with another man and it is not apparent he is related to Hsiao-Kang. He first meets Hsiao-Kang when pain causes him to fall off his scooter but although Father offers to help it is as if one stranger is doing another a favour, the upset or concern a parent would show about an injured child is absent so the fact they are related comes as a surprise.

Father is sexually unfaithful to his wife, and he also fails in basic tasks of a householder. His efforts to repair a leaking roof are comically inept and fail at a crucial point. In a cockeyed effort to help his son Father supports Hsiao-Kang’s head as they ride on his scooter. Mother (Lu Hsiao-ling) is also playing away having a relationship with a pornographer which is far from satisfactory- to gain any kind of sexual relief (one would not say pleasure) she must resort to using his products. There is a sense of people without any direction in life struggling with their inadequacies – at one point Mother aimlessly rides an elevator, stopping at different floors but never leaving.

Although there are graphic depictions of sex, it is portrayed as transactional rather than passionate. Hsiao-Kang’s Girlfriend has sex with him as if paying him back for helping on the film shoot. Director Tsai Ming-liang films in ‘real time’ without cuts and this has great impact in a lengthy cold, dispassionate seduction scene. Beginning in McDonald’s (which acts as a pick-up point for the characters) Father catches the eye of a young man loitering nearby and, without ever speaking or walking together, they wander casually but separately though a neon-lit arcade and empty streets to a bathhouse. There is such a mood of shame it feels like the seduction is happening in a time or place where homosexuality is illegal.

The unflinching approach taken by director Tsai Ming-liang makes The River a film which is easier to appreciate than to enjoy.

Queer East Festival 2024 takes place 17 – 28 April across venues in London.