Abiding Nowhere

Official Selection, 2024 Berlin International Film Festival

Only Tsai Ming-liang could birth ten versions of the same film and have our eyes riveted, unable to look away from the mesmerizing, barely-there movement of his longtime collaborator and muse, Lee Kang-sheng. Inspired by a 7th century monk’s pilgrimage from China to India (mythologized into Journey to the West), the first iteration began in 2012, commissioned by a hyper-fast Hong Kong streaming service. Since then, Tsai’s Walker series has seen Lee move with glacial slowness in Marseilles, Tokyo, Malaysia, and more. In ABIDING NOWHERE, Tsai goes to Washington DC, his first US foray.

It’s hard not to imagine the muscle cramps and sweat under Lee’s heavy monks robes, as his rigid body moves microscopically in locations grandiose and small – across the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Museum (who commissioned this iteration), and DC’s less famous alleyways and pastoral settings. Lee is mirrored by a second character, a young man (Anong Houngheangsy, Days SDAFF ‘20) who explores in stops and starts, clambering up stairwells, squatting on boulders. Both figures perform attention with wildly different vocabularies of time – one with fluctuating curiosity, the other with single-minded focus.

Tsai has said Lee walks slowly so we can see more clearly. And there’s so much to notice in ABIDING NOWHERE’s panoramic tableaus from little visual humors, background gawkers, and the sheer effort of Lee’s stillness. Tsai pulled the film’s title from the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, “Abiding nowhere, give rise to mind,” often interpreted as a free heart through constant renewal. In fact, to watch ABIDING NOWHERE is to slowly release into the pleasures of unattached attention, a delicious cognitive cleanse. Tsai’s constantly renewing Walker series has become one of cinema’s longest and most satisfying walks, as much about the walker as the locations he traverses, one step at a time.

– Christina Ree

As part of the Taiwan Showcase, this screening is FREE for UCSD students, faculty, and staff with ID.