Md Washim Baksh

It feels garish to put this into words. If we assume speech to be a metaphor for connection, then we witness here an encapsulation of the spaces between connections. But at the same time, the film tells a complete story with so few words that it puts the lie to that idea; Tsai Ming-Liang barely needs sound to communicate anything. Regardless, the story here, the image we are presented, is one of extreme isolation, one of pure, soul-shivering loneliness. Every frame speaks to it (Lin in an empty, ragged building calling for someone to show up; Kang always under the bed, a layer beneath human interaction). Every action is inspired by it, including the best moment illustrating the rare beauty of the boredom of isolation and how it inspires something like genius (I refer of course to bowling with watermelon).

The characters are looking for something they have lost. They are so intrigued about this elephant which is said to be living in a city called Manzhouli. The elephant is also said to sit still , utterly desolated from the rest of the world sharing similarities with the cast. They believe or intend to visiting the elephant which might help them get what they're looking for. Hu Bo's Hu Bo's first and final future film , after which he killed himself before the movie come out , an elephant sitting still is a marathon of screening afflicted people in an unknown city of China and a master class in the study of human agony , distress and hyperlink cinema in general .Rest easy.