Another meditative piece of cinema from Tsai Ming-Liang’s, who has been one of the most prominent filmmakers of the new cinema movement in Taiwan since his debut in 1992. The film begins with an extreme close-up of Denis Lavant who is Leos Carax’s alter ego. No audience ever before would have observed the fine details of his face and breath. Then Tsai’s own alter ego, Lee Kang-sheng, appears as the extremely slow walking Buddhist monk, this time in Marseille, France. He seems like the monk himself rather than an actor playing the role. More important in the film is the details of the background realized by sound and image. Most pedestrians indifferently pass by, but Denis joins in, following the monk. The audience is invited to Vipassana Meditation, which requires participants not miss any details on the way to enlightenment. And this proves that the director, who has created and expanded his own world in cinema, transcended the art of cinema into a new dimension. (PARK Sungho)