M HKA Ensembles

Installation, 00:12:00.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK007473).

The film opens with the image of an apartment building in the blue glow of morning light. At the end, there is again an image of an apartment block in the warm light of afternoon. The story of a young man unfolds between these two moments. We see him waiting for morning on a miniscule balcony, watching how the grey world comes to life anew. He utters not a word, just observing what’s around him. The visual images are stilled. They serve up warm sounds of a lonely guitar and vague noises of the city in the background. We see the man jogging. He does his morning gymnastics between grey walls; a host of skyscrapers surround the scene. It is night. A street filled with emptiness after a rain shower. We see clothes hanging out a window, trees in front of a house, people walking on the street, a cyclist. Images of reality. Everything grey.

The film thrives on images, not on words or dialogues. The young man lies on the grass, smokes a cigarette and thinks. It seems like his feelings, thoughts and memories are suggested in the interwoven images of apartment blocks, the sky, alleys… Flighty impressions become an urban tale. Images and scenes are flowingly linked, and without a single dialogue they form a poetic whole. At the end of the film, this text appears: 'the story will not be end since the life goes on / we should know where to even there is nowhere / the film is to my friends, those doleful young dreamers'. The film is dedicated to Liang Yues’ friends, ‘those doleful young dreamers’, like the protagonist in her film.