What’s the deal with people who double-park without leaving a note? Such curiosity led to the making of Parking (停車), a blackly comic drama by seasoned television commercial director and cinematographer Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏).
Set during one night in Taipei, Chung’s debut feature film, which boasts a cast of fine actors from Taiwan and Hong Kong, opens with Chen Mo (Chang Chen, 張震) finding his car blocked in after he stops at a pastry shop on his way home for a dinner date with his estranged wife (Kwai Lun-mei, 桂綸鎂).
The search for the double-parked vehicle’s driver takes Chen through a chain of bizarre situations and a gallery of eccentric characters: a friendly one-armed barber (Jack Kao, 高捷) with a shady past; an elderly couple who look after their young granddaughter and seem to mistake him for their long-lost son; a Chinese prostitute (Peggy Tseng, 曾珮瑜who is virtually imprisoned by her abusive pimp (Leon Dai, 戴立忍); and a Hong Kong tailor (Chapman To, 杜汶澤) who is on the run from underground loan sharks.
With richly colored tableaux and unusual camera movements and framings, Chung’s cinematography creates a stylish effect that prevents the viewer from becoming too emotionally engaged in the narrative. Enveloped in haunting contrasts of light and shadow, Taipei appears alien and inhabited by phantom-like loners and pale drifters.
Chen, a typical-looking white-collar urbanite, is seen casting a long headless shadow on a barren street early in the film, which is just one example of the well-executed ways in which director Chung conveys the theme of estrangement in visual terms.
The protagonist’s Kafkaesque journey sees him enter the lives and pasts of the other characters who seem to be trapped in a dilapidated apartment building that is frozen in time. The story’s sense of absurdity is accentuated by occasional bursts of dark humor that include an arresting episode involving a fish head.
As well as Chen’s frustrated attempt to extricate himself from his predicament, the film takes on a political tone through the roles of trapped Taiwanese, lost Hong Kongers, and Chinese who become victims of capitalism, though the director avoids wearing his heart on his sleeve.
The film feels slightly too long and drags on towards the end, while some scenes are less developed than others. Parking’s coda is forced as its bright mood clashes with the rest of the film.
Without a solid cast the episodic story would not have worked. Two of Taiwan’s finest actors, Jack Kao (高捷) and Leon Dai (戴立忍), stand out with their seemingly effortless performances, while Hong Kong’s Chapman To lends the flick a Wong Kar Wai-esque tone. Chang Chen (張震), who is emerging as a serious actor, approaches the main character with a proper sense of perplexity.
Premiered this year in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, Parking establishes Chung as a new talent in Taiwanese cinema and a name to watch closely.
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