The Wayward Cloud (2005)

The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) – the title is a sort of riff on "The Wayward Wind", a song you've probably heard Patsy Cline sing – is, perhaps, the weirdest Tsai Ming-liang movie I've seen. Lee Kang-sheng plays a porn actor who starts the film having sex with a woman and a watermelon. There is a water shortage in Taiwan, and so watermelons are everywhere – they're cheaper than water – and people are drinking watermelon juice instead of water. This also has very strange musical numbers; the ones in The Wayward Cloud are less integrated into the narrative than the ones in The Hole. These musical numbers are more interesting, though, and are very imaginatively staged. At one point, Lee wears a penis hat and dances around in a very large bathroom with dozens of girls. In another, he cross-dresses and sings amid many watermelon umbrellas. I don't know. I found this movie very strange, and the ending is very troubling.