Vive L'amour (1994)

A Whisper in the City: Loneliness, Taipei-Style - Vive L'amour review by griggs

Three strangers drift through the same empty Taipei apartment, barely aware they're sharing it. May Lin, an estate agent, uses the flat between property viewings. Ah-jung, a cocky street vendor, treats it as a temporary escape. And then there’s Hsiao-kang—quieter, more withdrawn, almost ghost-like. Of the three, he’s the most removed, slipping in and out like someone hoping not to be seen.

Vive L'Amour is less about what happens and more about what doesn't. Dialogue is minimal, connection is rarer still, and the film settles into a kind of emotional stasis that's both awkward and strangely absorbing. It's all about alienation, urban disconnection, and the strange ways we try—and fail—to reach one another.

Tsai Ming Iiang doesn't tell you what to feel; he just gives you the silence and asks you to sit with it. Hsaio-kang's voyeurism isn't predatory—it's about wanting to exists. When he eats a peach left behind by someone else, it feels like borrowed intimacy. A trace of someone else's warmth.

There's no tidy resolution. No grand carthasis. Just a quiet accumulation of loneliness. Vive L'Amour doesn't shout—it barely whispers. But if you've ever felt invisible in your own life, this one know exactly how that feels.