The Skywalk Is Gone / Mambo Cool

Mambo Cool   

With filmmaker Chris Gude in person

Colombia. Dir. Chris Gude. 2013, 62 mins. Digital projection. White powder, dealers, and female poseurs in a shady city barely glimpsed. A man who introduces himself as a warrior talks to spirits. In this highly skillful first film, meager plots are collected in bare settings, marked out by fixed frames with straight lines and pure colors. An amazing, almost threatening quietness prevails, reinforced by serene voices and stylized action that gives each meeting and each line of dialogue the weight of necessity. In the nooks and crannies of a claustrophobic city, whose hustle and bustle can be heard from afar, an unexpected body trade is taking place, with a 32-year-old prostitute claiming to be a virgin, with alleged clients simply offering massages, and the story of a friendship between a man and a gorilla. We know nothing for sure, except that this world goes by the melancholic and nagging rhythm of mambo.

Preceded by:

The Skywalk Is Gone (Le Pont N’est Plus Là)

Taiwan/France. Dir. Tsai Ming-liang. 2002, 22 mins. 35mm. Taipei, the ultra-modern bustling capital of Taiwan. A disorientated young woman wandering around in search of a bridge over a busy road comes upon a young man who is going to the casting session for a pornographic film. Their link? There is none, except chance. In this epilogue to And what time is it over there? (2001) Tsai Ming-liang captures in sequential shots the bodies lost in a maze-like town, filming its smooth surface, its distractions and reflections. 

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