Remembering your pain to feel alive Millenium Mambo is a continuation of the new wave of Taiwanese cinema, led by Edward Yang and Hou Xiaoxian. However, despite the fact that we see a completely different Taiwanese society than in the 70-80s of the last century, there is still the same uncertainty, a return to the same traumatic events that shaped today’s Taiwan. Millennial Mambo is also about the complex past and the liberation we all tend to find when we begin to understand ourselves.
The main character Vicki recalls the events of 10 years ago, when life was a continuous rave and crowded with neon light, and all this revolved around a complex manipulative relationship, from which it is so difficult to leave forever. I guess that's it. But in this simplicity of the setting lies such a spectrum of complex and strong emotions that sometimes you do not even understand how it is possible to convey them so realistically.
The Millennial Mambo is a return to that period of youth when there is no meaning in every day - there is only an insatiable thirst for life and pleasure, and for most of the youth there is also the eternal problem of finding a livelihood. Bringing all this into the system at that stage was almost impossible, because how can you listen to the rhythm of your heart when it is interrupted by a bit of electronic music of endless parties?
In the character of Vicki, we see an ordinary girl who has been dating a completely irresponsible young man Hao Hao since school, who is monstrously manipulative towards her friend. For Vicki, the time she spends evenings with Hao Hao becomes almost the most difficult - this director emphasizes at least a change in the soundtrack exactly in those moments when Vicki is at home alone with him. Conversely, we hear a cross-cutting motif with nostalgia and a light yearning for the past when Vicki is not spending time with Hao Hao. And despite all this, she returns to her boyfriend over and over again - perhaps because in moments when life is filled with chaos, it is a proven, even painful relationship that becomes the only and last bastion of stability.
Hou Xiaoxin in the 00s continued what he started during the new wave of Taiwanese cinema. The uniqueness of the Millennium Mambo is not only that we can look at the daily life of Taipei with one eye, but also that this everyday life is captured so close and so understandable to everyone that sometimes you forget that you look at people of another nationality.
10 out of 10