Through the Looking Hole

Finding Hope and Survival within Destruction in Tsai Ming-Liang’s The Hole

hello! i wrote this essay for my film class. it is not incredible and it was slightly rushed so i don’t consider it my best writing, but i am still somewhat proud of it. please ignore any grammatical errors as i literally didn’t proofread this because i was rushing to turn this in before 11:59 lol

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“The government is going to call off all garbage runs. We are being driven out of this place. This is not fair to the people who live here. If the epidemic is really prevailing in this area… they should have done something a long time ago… but they didn’t do a thing about it. They didn’t try to protect us. Now look at us. The disease is wide-spread and everyone is sick. They want us to move into tents and schools like refugees. Why should I cooperate with them?”

As the viewer enters the 1998 film The Hole, directed by Chinese-Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, these words from a radio or television are heard accompanying visual darkness. Immediately, one feels alienated– being informed of this information through sound but no visuals creates a disconnect, a confusion from “reality”. One is thrown into the midst of this situation, and the film, with no clue how to navigate or comprehend it, which also serves to directly imitate for the viewer the experience of the characters. At the same time, the circumstances described feel eerily familiar– they are extremely reminiscent of past events such as the AIDS epidemic, the current event of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, and even just the world of late-stage capitalism. A government abandoning and breaking trust with their citizens (often particularly the most vulnerable ones) in the midst of a destructive catastrophe is, unfortunately, not a unique occurrence. Therefore, it is through this film that Tsai Ming-Liang explores questions that are very pertinent, ones that have been and continue to be asked by many with fear and anticipation, including: How will we survive in a world that forsakes us? Is it possible to move forward? What does this life look like? Is human connection/intimacy possible? Is The End inevitable? These questions are investigated brilliantly through the film’s technical, visual, and thematic aspects, and as a whole, the film greatly expands our view of both the past and the future. Additionally, the film includes an intersectional layer exploring the gender dynamics in pandemic/survival circumstances. We are even left with a bit of hope as it is seen through the two characters that the disastrous situation and the power of fantasies and desires ultimately culminates in a return to life-saving human connection.

Born in 1957, Tsai Ming-Liang is recognized as one of the most principal and celebrated directors of the “Second New Wave” of Taiwanese cinema. He was born in Malaysia, is of Chinese descent, and lived in Taiwan, and he cites this combination of identity to have had a huge influence on his psyche, as he never feels a sense of belonging regardless of his physical setting. Consequently, this feeling of alienation appears as a key theme in most, if not all, of his films. In general, the “Second New Wave” of Taiwanese film, beginning in the early 1980’s, is often reminiscent of Italian Neorealism, with an intention to present realistic representations of everyday Taiwanese life, frequently with long takes and deep focus. This often political neorealism is relevant for the 80’s in Taiwan, which “saw the final years of martial law, media censorship, and political murders, as well as the beginnings of multi-party democracy”, and “was a chaotic milieu which blurred freedom and authoritarianism, and in it’s midst, arts and social movements exploded”, as outlined by David Frazier for the Taipei Times in “1980’s Taiwan: Conflicted Legacy, Perfect Paradox”. This sociopolitical environment experienced by Ming-Liang is often directly explored through his films, and is nevertheless an influence, alongside the other key trademarks of Taiwanese film. Ming-Liang’s major filmmaking trademarks are slow-pacing, little dialogue, unconventional narrative structures, themes of alienation and desolation, and commentary on politics. 

These characteristics are all highly present in The Hole, which was originally made to represent Taiwan for the 2000, Seen By… film project by French company Haut et Court, where 10 films for 10 countries exhibited a perspective on the turn of the millennium. The Hole follows two individuals, one male and one female, in a nearly abandoned apartment complex as the unofficially titled “Taiwan Virus” threatens the country alongside the approaching end of the millennium. Most people have evacuated at this point, and in fact there are only a couple of other people seen living in the area besides the two main characters. These people, most likely not privileged enough to move out, or maybe simply distrustful of the government that is encouraging them to do so, are essentially left to rot with their surroundings. In the building, wallpaper drips down the walls, electricity and water sources are inconsistent, and there is a relentless downpour of rain. It is wholly bleak and desolate. The two characters are moving through their days simply trying to survive– the man follows a routine of sitting at his grocery store all day, feeding a stray cat, receiving little to no business, and coming home and getting drunk. Meanwhile, the woman is constantly and desperately trying to fix her crumbling life– she struggles to maintain her home and self through incessant obstacles and chaos, her only respite being through imagined fantasies. The two lives intersect when the woman has a leak in her ceiling, which is the man’s floor, and instead of being fixed by the plumber, the titular hole is formed between their two apartments. What follows is a fascinating relationship literally between the two that is petty as well as thoughtful. 

Beginning a week before the year cracks 2000, and before the waste and water supplies are officially cut off, The Hole is a countdown. This setting, being not too far in the future from it’s real years of production, still feels like science fiction, as it represents a possible future in order to provoke consideration about our present conditions. This manipulation of time, through the countdown aspect of “the week before the End”, as well as fragmentary and episodic pacing as opposed to a more typical narrative structure, makes the film feel as if it is in some sort of temporal, separate, dissociated world. This is furthered by the continuous downpour of rain, which surrounds the characters– it is constantly seen through the windows and doorways, and when it is not seen, it is heard– aggressively. This rainstorm is almost reminiscent of the biblical concept of the deluge. While the characters are existing in their reality, the sound is always diegetic. The viewer sees and hears this world as relentlessly as the characters do. The film also utilizes framing to display how trapped the characters are in this inescapable and overwhelming world of chaos. The characters are seen confined in doorways (or even hoarded stacks of toilet paper), and the shot distance is rarely closer than long shots, illustrating a distance from the characters’ inner minds– they can never be separated by the influence of their surrounding situation, and there is essentially no room for extra thought. In addition, the fact that the characters are not explicitly given names furthers the influence of this environment– it provokes contemplation on what it means to have selfhood within a setting so aggressive that personal identity is the last thing that comes to mind as a priority or even idea. 

This environment serves to illustrate the alienation of the characters in a bleak situation. They are both isolated in their attempts to simply survive. This is very similar to situations like late-stage capitalism, as this film could be seen as symbolic or representative of. In an interview with David Walsh, Tsai Ming-Liang states that the film is “less… about the new millennium than about contemporary Taipei, a city that has developed too fast from many negative aspects of modernization, capitalism, and civilization.” As with capitalism, a connection is yearned for more than anything– the kind of connection that capitalism does not breed, and in fact strongly discourages because it does not serve it. In “Gender Hierarchy and Environmental Crisis in Tsai Ming-Liang’s The Hole”, Kai-man Chang speaks on the virus being spread, a disease that begins with flu-like symptoms but ends with behavior similar to a cockroach, saying that “the Kafkaesque crawling creatures in The Hole can be viewed as an epitome of social alienation.” Indeed, Ming-Liang’s choice to write the “Taiwan Virus” as one that eventually leads it’s victims into imitating cockroaches is fascinating, as cockroaches are a life form that has learned to adapt to difficult conditions very well, and yet are seen as despicable. This personally brings to mind the experiences of marginalized people in society, like disabled people and BIPOC, as they have been forced to adapt to their oppressive conditions but are still systematically treated with less worth.

The only way that the two tenants are able to maintain some sort of perseverance in all this is through fantasy and desire– specifically, the fantasy of the intimacy they lack in their lives. Both the man and the woman express fantasies of intimacy in ways that reflect their gendered experience. Five times throughout the film, the narrative of the bleak actions of the characters are interrupted with a musical number. The songs are those of Grace Chang’s, a popular Chinese singer and actress of the 1950’s. In each number, the female character lip-synchs songs of lighthearted desire (“I want Your Love” is one of the song titles) while she dances in glamorous outfits and makeup, and is accompanied with backup dancers or even the other male character. The switch is incredibly bizarre. Suddenly, the sound of rain fades away, and all that is heard is glitzy and exciting Old-Hollywood style music. This choice of specifically Grace Chang’s 50’s music is interesting because it utilizes nostalgia– fantasized projections of the past– to provoke a yearning for a fantasized future. Originally, Tsai Ming-Liang planned to film these musical segments in a separate studio from the apartment complex, but after shooting the apartment scenes on set, he decided to film the musical numbers in the apartment complex as well. In my opinion, this detail perfects them; fantasies are born out of our reality, and can only remain separate to a certain extent. In the background of these musicals, then, are the dingy hallways, dusty elevators, and paint-peeled ceilings. Although some string-lights have been placed atop them, they are not completely removed from reality. 

As mentioned, these musical numbers come out of nowhere. The contrast is jarring, and in general, they are almost confusing. Even though there is nothing to connect them directly as the woman’s fantasies, I choose to interpret them as such due to the fact that it is the woman that is centered in and lip-synching to each of the songs, and also due to the fact that the fantasies are born from specifically her reality– i.e., when she begins getting sick, the next musical number is “Achoo Cha Cha”. 

That the woman’s yearning for intimacy being manifested only as imagined fantasies is very telling– her desire is very real, and it is born out of, and is a temporary salve for, her bleak reality, but it cannot be expressed outside of her mind. This contrasts with the man’s expressions of longing for intimacy, which mainly find themselves as interactions with the hole. First and foremost, while the hole is technically an inconvenience for both the man and the woman, it is symbolic that the man is on the top and the woman is on the bottom. This models patriarchal power structures, as the man has more ability to exercise harm on the woman below him, as he frequently does (for example, one night he gets drunk and throws up through the hole), and the woman can only enact temporary protection: she sprays insecticide up once, and she tries to duct-tape the hole on her side, but the tape is easily removed when the man pours water. For the woman, the hole is another hugely frustrating inconvenience, but for the man, the hole is something to be explored– something to penetrate– and it doesn’t look as if the man is really inconvenienced by it at all. The hole is what the man expresses his desires of intimacy through, but he does it in a way that is disregardful and disrespectful toward the woman, as men are often trained by patriarchy. This hole, as a real and tangible pathway towards possible intimacy, becomes so important for the man that he ignores the plummer’s knocks at the door to fix it, choosing to keep it instead (although of course it shouldn’t be his choice to make). The man then cleans and enlarges the hole, before sticking his leg through it. 

Near the end of the film, the woman’s sickness progresses, and she crawls to her stacks of hoarded tissues before passing out. Soon later, the camera watches her, past the kitchen and through the doorway, emerge from the pile and lay sprawled out, breathless and seemingly close to her doomed end. However, a ray of light remains directly on her– she is underneath the hole. The scene remains still for a minute. One begins to think she will be left to pass out again (or worse), when suddenly, the light shifts, and a hand emerges, holding a glass of water. After drinking the water, the hand emerges again. This time it is empty, but the woman grasps it, and is pulled up through the hole. Realizing the woman’s trouble, the man uses his dominance for good, and in uplifting her into his apartment, he places them on the same level, in other words removing their power inbalance. The final scene consists of the two in the upper apartment, dancing in each other's arms to Grace Chang’s “I Don’t Care Who You Are”-- a song with lyrics that include “alone together, in the dark, come the days of carefree spring”. This last scene could be read as a final fantasy, as all the past musical numbers have been. However, in this scene, one detail sticks out as different from the rest– the rain can still be subtly heard, and it is seen through the window in the background. It’s with that that I choose to interpret the final scene as taking place in some realm of reality– where they hopefully end up saving themselves through each other. 

Our society, and many of it’s catastrophic situations, breeds alienation through it’s extremely harsh circumstances. Human connection and cooperation is crushed and prevented by default, just as it as longed for more than anything else. But, as we are finding, we need each other to survive whether we like it or not. Tsai Ming-Liang’s film The Hole is representative of this. A plague threatens and harms and a decaying Taipei, and it’s few remaining citizens struggle to survive, each on their own. When the hole forms, it seems to be just another form of inconvenience for the two characters. However, this thing that emerges out of the destruction becomes the thing that saves them. The hole quite literally links two crumbling individuals together. What is a disappearance is simultaneously an emergence– and through the power of their fantasies, they are able to see the potential in their reality, thus merging fantasy and reality, and moving toward survival. Connection becomes inevitable through what is destroying them, and survival through ruin is possible if it can only be realized and pursued. Living in a time that often feels hopeless, and where an alienated experience is very (if not entirely) common, I’m given hope through the fact that connection will become inevitable, and will appear literally out of what’s crushing us. Through it all, we will find each other, and make it through.