Indulging in fluffy love games

Wu Mi-sen explores the questions posed by falling in love in many of his films. PHOTO COURTESY OF WU MI-SEN

Wu Mi-sen (吳米森) is a new breed of Taiwanese filmmaker. His films do not talk about the sadness of Taiwan history and they do not intend to explore the alienation and coldness of Taiwan society.

In the films, there are no gangsters or lower-class people, only young and beautiful brooders in contemporary Taipei. The beautiful brooders engage in light, playful yet melancholy games of love.

Matching his beautiful casts are usually Wu's equally playful and poetic images.

And then there are the lines in Wu's 60-minute short Fluffy Rhapsody, such as, "I never put my clothes in the washing machine, because they'll get fluffy ... The clothes get fluffy when washed too much. It's the same in daily life; it gets fluffy when you have too much daily life."

The story of Fluffy Rhapsody is about a medical school graduate who refuses to practice medicine and prefers to stay jobless. He sleeps with various young girls and often changes his name. Then he starts a love affair with a high school girl who claims that she is a lesbian.

There is also a homosexual element in Wu's first long feature Drop Me A Cat (給我一隻貓), which will be released at both the Majestic Cinema and SPOT next weekend (June 14).

As for Wu's next feature film, The End of the War, he plans to talk about two female robots who somehow fall in love with each other, a story adapted from a sci-fi novel by Taiwanese author Chih Ta-wei (紀大偉).

"I use lesbian elements not to discuss the issue of homosexuality or sexuality. I don't really know why. It may be unconscious. But my idea is to talk about love in the film and maybe gay characters can best describe the nature of love that I try to point out in the film," Wu said.

Graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York and City University of New York, Wu was first recognized for his graduation film Van Gogh's Ear, an experimental film featuring beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg reciting his poems. After making a few commercials and music videos, Wu decided to "let out his ego" and make a living as a full-time filmmaker.

Drop Me A Cat, Wu's first 35mm feature film is a fairy-tale-like story about love and death, starring Japanese star Shihji Takeda and Taiwanese model-actress Kuan Ying (關穎).

Perhaps the only film that doesn't star beautiful people is Wu's recent documentary Experimental Taiwanese.It is a humorous work about two mainlander veterans' nostalgic friendship. One, at the age of 77, is determined to learn the Taiwanese language. The other claims that he was China's No.1 spy against the Japanese during World War II.

Fluffy Rhapsody will be screened at SPOT from June 7. Drop Me A Cat will be screened at Majestic Cinema and SPOT from June 14. Both films have English subtitles.