Time in the Flesh: A Queer East Correspondence

Films that Held Me Hostage: Arrest and Arousal through the Body

By Jae Huang

I rarely go to the cin­e­ma for enjoy­ment. Fac­ing the sil­ver screen for almost two hours is a phys­i­cal­ly tax­ing expe­ri­ence; sit­ting in a dark room with strangers – sub­ject­ed to an onslaught of audio-visu­al and emo­tion­al bom­bard­ment – is not my first choice for a Tues­day evening, espe­cial­ly when today’s con­nec­tiv­i­ty allows for pri­vate view­ings on my lap­top. Yet at this year’s Queer East, short films from two of the Expand­ed pro­grammes had allowed me to encounter the body – mine, the sur­round­ing audi­ence and those on-screen – in unex­pect­ed ways. 

The cin­e­ma encas­es, or impris­ons, the viewer’s body, restrict­ing mobil­i­ty and fix­at­ing their gaze on the pro­ject­ed image of the sil­ver screen. This was unmis­tak­able when Walk­er by Tsai Ming-Liang began play­ing as the clos­ing short for the ‘(Dis)orientalism: Queer Exten­sions & Look­ing East’ screen­ing. The charm­ing spec­i­men of slow cin­e­ma turned the the­atre into a giant cryo cham­ber of med­i­ta­tive calm. Wide shots pin­point a red-robed monk played by Lee Kang Sheng (Tsai’s peren­ni­al muse) walk­ing at a glacial pace. His move­ments are metic­u­lous­ly con­trolled as he tra­vers­es the bustling streets and inter­laced sky bridges of Hong Kong, illu­mi­nat­ed by the sheer glow of bill­boards against tow­er­ing sky­scrap­ers. With­in the geo­met­ri­cal­ly com­posed frames, peo­ple enter, stare, muse, and depart – each with vary­ing degrees of patience and curios­i­ty. Their move­ments appear fran­tic against the monk’s ascetic composure. 

Yet the cinema’s cap­tiv­i­ty of the body enables anoth­er form of affect: as I focused on Lee’s move­ment, my body became a con­tin­u­a­tion of his, absorb­ing his tem­po­ral­i­ty and rhythm. The rush of the city became alien­at­ing, inhu­man. The audi­ence gazes at him, mir­ror­ing the dis­tract­ed passers­by on-screen, assign­ing mean­ing to his pres­ence and move­ment, yet the out­ra­geous slow­ness of the film asserts that his phys­i­cal pres­ence pre­cedes inter­pre­ta­tion. I was remind­ed of East­ern spir­i­tu­al prac­tices that empha­sise pres­ence and aware­ness, con­trast­ing with the val­ori­sa­tion of mean­ing – or the lack there­of – which char­ac­teris­es West­ern post-mod­ernist thought. 

Walk­er is the first of ten short films con­sti­tut­ing Tsai’s Walk­er series, all per­formed by Lee, in met­ro­pol­i­tan cities across Asia and Europe. The robed fig­ure Lee por­trays is a homage to the sev­enth-cen­tu­ry Bud­dhist monk Xuan­zang, who trav­elled from Chi­na to India on a sev­en­teen-year-long pil­grim­age. In an inter­view, Lee explains how he treat­ed the per­for­mance as a med­i­ta­tive dis­ci­pline through which he remains com­posed despite phys­i­cal dis­com­fort and human inter­fer­ence. Lee’s pos­tures, such as his deep hunch, or the steady rais­ing and low­er­ing of his feet, are cap­tured through both extreme wide shots and close-ups. His con­cen­trat­ed phys­i­cal­i­ty asserts a radius of pal­pa­ble con­trol over the sur­round­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um. While I felt com­fort­ed by the placid pac­ing, the per­son next to me could not with­stand its hyp­no­tism and nod­ded off in due course. A gen­uine somat­ic expe­ri­ence, if not an expect­ed effect from the director.

Some screen­ings are fat­ed to take place after dark. After down­ing a cor­ner-shop cock­tail mix­er at mid­night on a Fri­day, I rushed past the bustling queer clubs on Dal­ston Kings­land high street into the Rio Cin­e­ma. A lit­tle refresh­ment per­fect­ly fits the theme as the mid­night screen­ing titled ​‘Things and Tin­gling’ cen­tres fetish in all its dimen­sions: sex­u­al, mate­r­i­al, and cul­tur­al. All three ele­ments are pre­cise­ly inter­meshed in Bart Seng Wen Long’s Emer­gen­cies, a cheeky, essay film about the his­to­ry of the Malaysian rub­ber indus­try and the filmmaker’s per­son­al fond­ness for latex. 

Late Fri­day night, a the­atre of mod­er­ate­ly tip­sy queers gaze at an inter­play of images: archival snip­pets of a colo­nial-era British film The Planter’s Wife (1952) depict­ing the fan­ta­sy of South East Asian exploitabil­i­ty, inter­cut with a face­less Sin­ga­pore­an gimp loung­ing in a tyre shop, nar­rat­ing his fond­ness with latex play. What a bizarre and ine­bri­at­ing expe­ri­ence! The late-night screen­ing also pays homage to the long his­to­ry of movie the­atres as a site for queer cruis­ing – an inge­nious cura­to­r­i­al choice height­ened by a live gimp-shibari performance. 

In its idio­syn­crat­ic nar­ra­tive, Emer­gen­cies accen­tu­ates the uncan­ny asso­ci­a­tion between sex­u­al plea­sure, mate­r­i­al fetishism and colo­nial vio­lence. Intro­duced in the 19^th Cen­tu­ry, the rub­ber indus­try made Malaysia one of Britain’s most prof­itable colonies. British extrac­tion and prof­it heav­i­ly dam­aged the eco­log­i­cal ter­rains of the coun­try and per­se­cut­ed indige­nous Malays, leav­ing a trau­mat­ic lega­cy that long out­last­ed colo­nial rule. Through the inter­play of the his­tor­i­cal and per­son­al, Long exam­ines Malaysian nation­al his­to­ry against his own per­son­al affec­tion for latex – explor­ing how both plea­sure and its pro­duc­tion stem from pow­er fan­tasies of dom­i­na­tion and submission. 

I believe laugh­ter is an inte­gral part of con­fronting trau­ma, a way of glanc­ing side­ways. By inter­lac­ing raunchy anec­dotes with scenes from archival colo­nial dra­mas, Long humor­ous­ly con­fronts the absur­di­ty of indi­vid­ual com­plic­i­ty under glob­al cap­i­tal­ism with the com­plex his­to­ries of colo­nial trauma. 

Cin­e­ma-going has nev­er been apo­lit­i­cal, espe­cial­ly the phys­i­cal atten­dance at movie the­atres. Queer East’s efforts to bring togeth­er the bod­ies of mar­gin­alised peo­ples in a dias­poric set­ting inscribes mean­ing to the events and the films them­selves. Besides, I have dis­cov­ered an inim­itable effect that comes with one’s phys­i­cal pres­ence in a cin­e­ma: to expe­ri­ence var­i­ous forms of imme­di­ate sen­so­r­i­al arrest, all the way from med­i­ta­tive trance to the tin­gling of arousal. Would it be appro­pri­ate to com­pare the trans­for­ma­tive impris­on­ment of the movie the­atre to the provoca­tive anonymi­ty under a gimp suit? I think so. 

Tem­po­ral­i­ties of Grief 

By Soumya Sharma

What hap­pens when the past doesn’t leave but lingers – qui­et, unre­solved, and heavy? At Queer East 2025, grief and mem­o­ry seemed to haunt not only the nar­ra­tives but also the struc­ture of the films them­selves, writ­ten into their pac­ing, silences and rep­e­ti­tions. In Wang Ping-Wen and Peng Tzu-Hui’s A Jour­ney in Spring, mourn­ing is deferred, stretched and avoid­ed through the rigid res­o­lu­tion of a man who con­tin­ues to live accord­ing to his dai­ly rou­tine along­side his wife’s deceased body, in denial of her death. In Aki­hi­ro Suzuki’s Look­ing For An Angel, the film traces the life of a young porn star who died vio­lent­ly through rec­ol­lec­tions from those who knew him. In the for­mer, grief is shaped by the qui­et ache of los­ing a life­long part­ner who had become insep­a­ra­ble from one’s own self; in the lat­ter, it is mould­ed by a future that could have been, cut short before it could be ful­ly expe­ri­enced. Both are shaped by the unre­solved weight of absence; yet one mourns the end of a shared life­time, while the oth­er con­tends with the bru­tal­i­ty of era­sure. What emerges is a sense of emo­tion­al haunt­ing, as char­ac­ters grap­ple with a grief-induced rup­ture in the tem­po­ral­i­ty of every­day life. 

Set in a lush green rain-soaked hill­side just beyond Taipei, A Jour­ney in Spring unfolds in a qui­et, tra­di­tion­al home, seem­ing­ly untouched by moder­ni­ty. Khim-Hok (King Jieh-Wen), an age­ing, con­ser­v­a­tive man, and his wife Siu-Tuan (Kuei-Mei Yang, known for her icon­ic role in Vive L’Amour) ven­ture up and down the moun­tain into town to com­plete errands before return­ing to their seclud­ed abode. Their domes­tic life is punc­tu­at­ed by bick­er­ing and brief men­tions of their estranged queer son. When Siu-Tuan sud­den­ly dies, Khim-Hok places her body in a freez­er, unable to con­front her pass­ing, and con­tin­ues with his days as if she were still there. Much of his emo­tion is with­held; he fix­es the plumb­ing, gets a job at a noo­dle shop, and sits in silence by him­self. One of the few moments where his rou­tine fal­ters comes when he opens the freez­er to add more ice. He stops, looks at her, and reach­es out ten­der­ly to touch her face. The close-up cap­tures her fea­tures through the soft tex­tures of the film’s 16mm medi­um, lend­ing a warmth that feels both inti­mate and frag­ile. This still­ness, paired with his cry, breaks the busy rhythm that has so far kept Khim-Hok’s emo­tion at bay. It is a ges­ture of star­tling vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that breaks through his denial, mak­ing grief impos­si­ble to sup­press any longer.

When their son returns, the seclu­sion which had so far allowed Khim-Hok to con­tin­ue liv­ing with his wife is encroached, dis­rupt­ing the frag­ile tem­po­ral sus­pen­sion of his grief. As they pre­pare for the funer­al, the rela­tion­ship between Khim-Hok, his son, and the son’s part­ner remains lacon­ic and steely. In sev­er­al scenes, the three men spa­tial­ly occu­py the frame, but they often stand apart, often­times the dad with­in the back­ground and the cou­ple in the fore­ground or vice ver­sa. The com­po­si­tion itself reflects their dis­con­nec­tion: three peo­ple mov­ing through the same rit­u­als across entire­ly dif­fer­ent spa­tial and tem­po­ral planes. This intri­cate chore­og­ra­phy stands in qui­et con­trast to ear­li­er scenes, where Khim-Hok and his wife moved in gen­tle sync. Often walk­ing slight­ly apart, they still fol­lowed one anoth­er, occu­py­ing the frame with a rhythm that felt habit­u­al and inter­de­pen­dent. Their shared pres­ence ground­ed the frame with a qui­et inti­ma­cy that now feels con­spic­u­ous­ly absent. Just before the cre­ma­tion, Khim-Hok places his wife’s body in a truck and takes her on a final jour­ney and speaks to her as if she were still alive. Her pres­ence is not mor­bid, but com­fort­ing, mark­ing a shift from the ear­li­er freez­er scene where his denial felt des­per­ate. Now there is ten­der­ness, a qui­et attempt to stay close and say good­bye on his own terms. In the end, the film returns to its open­ing shot – Khim-Hok seat­ed before the water­fall that his wife had desired to vis­it togeth­er, now car­ry­ing the full weight of their shared mem­o­ries and her pass­ing. Life con­tin­ues, but he remains sus­pend­ed in grief, and his every­day life is shaped by absence: not the kind that fades, but the kind that set­tles in and lingers.

Where A Jour­ney in Spring keeps emo­tion tight­ly held through rep­e­ti­tion and silence, the exper­i­men­tal fic­tion film direct­ed by Aki­hi­ro Suzu­ki, Look­ing for an Angel, begins mid-frac­ture. Takachi (Koichi Imaizu­mi) – a gay man who stars in straight porn – is dead and what fol­lows is a series of frag­ments: hand­held footage of par­ties and road trips, voiceovers from friends and col­leagues who remem­ber him (some with ten­der­ness, oth­ers with detach­ment), and erot­ic yet imper­son­al flash­es of pornog­ra­phy. The film opens with a still frame of a semi-naked body, pre­sum­ably Takachi’s, lying on a stair­case land­ing, back turned to the cam­era, as the direc­tor con­fronts us with the enmeshed rela­tion­ship between eroti­cism and vio­lence that gov­erned Takachi’s life. Grainy blue light coats much of the movie, its hazy tex­ture shaped by the organ­ic qual­i­ty of 35mm film, giv­ing every­thing the feel of a half-for­got­ten dream. Time­lines blur, and Takachi appears alive, dead, and remem­bered: Takachi on his bike, Takachi mid-fuck, Takachi laugh­ing with his friends, and Takachi in his home­town. In sev­er­al scenes, he speaks open­ly about his hopes and heart­breaks, his rela­tion­ship with his sex­u­al­i­ty, and his long­ing for con­nec­tion. The film doesn’t show what hap­pens exact­ly, but the audi­ence knows from the begin­ning that Takachi died vio­lent­ly in a homo­pho­bic attack. In its refusal to move for­ward, the film’s struc­tur­al non­lin­ear­i­ty mir­rors the sus­pend­ed tem­po­ral­i­ty of grief that so often engulfs the process of mourning. 

The film ends with a series of haunt­ing shots, fram­ing Takachi’s final moments from the per­spec­tive of the stranger who last encoun­tered him. His face is slight­ly bruised as he direct­ly con­fronts the shaky hand­held cam­era, deliv­er­ing a mono­logue in which he con­fess­es that he has nev­er lived the life he want­ed, nor been with the one he loved. And then, as if address­ing both the man in front of him and the audi­ence, he says, ​“Please be gen­tle.” His final words pos­sess the qui­et des­per­a­tion of some­one ask­ing for care in a world where harm is the norm, as Suzu­ki ges­tures towards a larg­er, more inescapable vio­lence which con­tin­ues to shape the tra­jec­to­ry of queer lives. Car­ry­ing the weight of queer grief, Takachi’s final scene seems both a farewell and an accu­sa­tion, a qui­et reck­on­ing with a world that refused to let him live ful­ly or love open­ly. In speak­ing to this endur­ing strug­gle, Look­ing For An Angel with­holds spec­ta­cle and high­lights how queer his­to­ries are often marked by unfin­ished sto­ries and silenced voic­es. Yet, these his­to­ries endure, kept alive by films that bear wit­ness and refuse to forget.