Millenium Mambo and Forgetting

Recently I decided to go to the cinema with my cinema subscription and watch “Millenium Mambo”, which was part of a series on the favourite movies of people working at the cinema. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I walked out thinking: “That was a good movie, but why do people like it so much?”. It was kind of absurd, so I thought back and noticed that I barely remember anything from the movie. This was the first time where after walking out of the cinema, I decided to read some movie reviews to get what the movie wanted from me. Turns out it’s a lot more than I thought.

The movie starts with probably the most important scene. The main character, Vicky, walks through some sort of hallway in blinding neon lights, the camera follows her from behind and she sometimes looks back at the camera. At the beginning of the movie, this scene tells you nothing, but the longer you watch, the more you notice, that this is exactly the whole movie. The movie plays in 2001, but is narrated by the main character from the future in 2011. She says that this happened 10 years ago and a lot of the time explains exactly what happens while narrating. Most of the movie is right after being told what happened 10 years ago, you see the scene play out and then she narrates again. This is somewhat of a time paradox, because the movie is told from the future. Having a narrator from 2011 narrating a story from 2001 in 2001 (when the movie was released) is bizarre.

The movie portrays the taiwanese nightlife with flashy neon lights, loud music and a lot of character. A lot of the scenes also happen in the apartments that Vicky lived in during the time, always showing different aspects, but not different perspective. The camera is very limited, it rarely moves and mostly shows the scene from the same perspective most of the time. In every room there is at least one corner or wall that is never shown by the camera, that’s where the camera is. This tells you that the movie is written from a 3rd person perspective, Vicky looks back on her life and doesn’t focus on herself, but more on what she saw during the time. This also reminds the viewer that they’re only a viewer. They’re not involved in the story. I believe this is also a part of the reason why I didn’t remember much after the movie. I was just a viewer, I wasn’t involved at all.

You see the main character stumble through her early 20s with a lot of bad decisions. S he has a toxic relationship where she breaks up and then reunites with her psychologically abusive partner constantly, even though he hurts her both mentally and physically. The night life influence brings alcohol and drugs to her life and relationship. In multiple scenes she drinks her sadness away to a point of passing out. She has the chance for another (supposedly healthy) relationship, but doesn’t take it. It is almost painful to watch through some of the scenes, because a lot of her problems would be solved by just running and staying away from the relationship.

She remembers one situation very clearly, which is also a big scene in the movie. Her boyfriend steals his dad’s Rolex watch to sell for money. He doesn’t work, so he has to get his money from somewhere else. His dad notices and sends the police after him, who search the apartment and then find a pawn ticket, which proves that he stole and sold the watch. This scene is special, because it is narrated and played out with a lot of details. For example the boyfriend isn’t here when the police arrives, apparently he left just after his father called him to get a piece required to repair the broken heater and only comes back to the police already being in the flat. The timeline doesn’t seem to add up though, calling the police regarding the crime, surely must have taken more time than getting a common repair part. This is where the movie starts to crumble and you notice what it is about more and more. The movie also leaves out everything around the situation. In the rest of the movie, the father or even any other family member isn’t mentioned anymore. And what happened to him after the police found out? We don’t know, because the main character doesn’t remember.

A lot of the scenes are Vicky and her boyfriend fighting. In the movie the relationship is portrayed in a way, where they are constantly fighting. The boyfriend gets angry and violent very quickly, their fighting gets aggressive and she even runs away from him multiple times because of the fights. This is also a good example of what the movie is about. It’s her remembering the time 10 years ago, the time where she was young and careless. And she just forgot a lot of the things that happened. Even though her life basically only happens in the nightlife scene, there are very little scenes actually playing in clubs or bars. The only scenes in bars and clubs have a different story string that makes them memorable. The birthday of a friend, her boyfriend coming back to her and the last time where she sees another person, who then “disappears”.

The movie is basically a list of highly memorable moments in her life. It doesn’t go into unnecessary details, unless they happen next to another memorable moment. It seems like it is a short representation of her life in 2001, but in reality it isn’t. You barely get to know what she does with her time. You only see very few parts, but they don’t stand out in any way. I think this is also a raeson why I couldn’t remember much of the movie. I was watching it from the wrong perspective. Having thought about it some more, more things come back to my mind. I really want to watch the movie again, if it ever shows in the cinema, just so I can see what I missed and appreciate it more.

I believe there are 2 big things to note about how the movie portrays the main character. One of them is what she remembers and the other one is how she looks back at her memories. She almost exclusievly remembers moments that we would define as “bad” in societys standards. I would believe that she also does so. But as you can see in both the narration and the first scene, which I mentioned earlier, she looks back at it in a positive manner. Even though she had violent fights with her boyfriend, very little plan of life, missed a big opportunity for a nice relationship and was almost constantly under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, she appears happy. She doesn’t seem to regret her decisions.

This is something that in a way opened my eyes. I’m currently at a point in my life where I’m almost truly free. I didn’t have to work yet, I travel a lot, try new things and experiment. I’ve made my fair share of bad decisions, for example dropping out of 2 uni courses and now life is about to get a lot more difficult, since I need to earn money, study and do so with a lot of pressure of me succeeding. I can’t keep up my lifestyle anymore, maybe a bit similar to Vicky, who also has to change at some point. But I also, in the process of thinking back to this movie, thought back to my own life and what I’ve done. I remember very little things, most of them aren’t really positive. But I also have very little regrets. I think I’m slowly coming to term with the fact that that’s just how my life is.

I’m currently on a train to Prague, on my way to a 4 day workshop that I helped organise for a Youth organisation. Probably one of the last of these trips, considering I’m getting older and feel already old here. It’s time for the younger generation to take over. In this way, I feel a bit of nostalgia. I might visit one or two of the bigger workshops that happen around the year, but the possibility that I don’t is larger than ever. I’ve already forgotten most of the workshops that I’ve attended or facilitated, I can’t even count them anymore and I believe that I will probably also forget this workshop sometime in the future. But that shouldn’t stop me from fully enjoying it and having fun. Sometime in the future, I will look back at my life and remember some snippets of things that I’ve done. And hopefully I will laugh and smile at them, no matter how positive or negative they are.