The Hole (aka Dong) was originally shown in the U.S. as part of the seven film "2000 Seen By . . ." series. Most of the films were under an hour. This one. .. made in 1997 and released originally in 1998 is 95 minutes and made by Taiwanese filmaker, Tsia Ming-Liang. He's made at least four films, a few have played the film festival circuit to some critical acclaim.

For more than a half hour, I kept waiting for The Hole to start. It seemed to take forever. During a black screen credit sequence, news reports (which since I don't speak Mandarin, mean I'm reading sub-titles) tell us that there's no more room for garbage, areas of the country are being quarantined and people are being forced to move out of their homes, some water supplies are being cut off, and a few people are acting very strange.

It's raining outside and most of the film will take place within two apartments in a large apartment complex. Occasionally we'll see an indoor business type mall.

We meet the two main characters – the only characters we ever spend time with. One owns a small grocery store business. For about ten minutes he hangs out in his underwear in his apartment. The other is young woman who lives in the apartment below the grocer. She used to be an office worker but now mainly hangs out in her black slip in her apartment. They are both about the same age --late 20's to mid 30's.

The woman's apartment is leaking and so a plumber comes into the man's apartment to see if there is a leak. Eventually he finds out the leak is from a pipe that is between their floors. So he fixes it but leaves a mess and a small hole in the floor of the man's apartment, and the ceiling of the woman's apartment.

The man is very nice to a cat who hangs out at his place of business. He sets up his grocery store but most people have left the city because of the upcoming quarantine. In fact we only see one customer come into the store and he is an old man who wants to know if the grocer has a particular brand of bean sauce. The grocer explains that brand hasn't been made for several years but he has another brand that's the same type of sauce. The old man doesn't buy anything and wanders off. As the grocer closes up shop he feeds the cat another can of cat food.

When he gets home to his apartment he is very drunk and throws up... he throws up right into the hole. The puke drips down into the woman's apartment who puts her hand in a puke puddle on her dresser and get grossed out and cleans it up.

Did I mention that it is raining outside? Lots of rain. We hear it constantly. The woman's apartment seems to be constantly leaking. Even after the plumber has fixed the one pipe and created the hole in the ceiling, there is water damage and other leaks. One of the leaks is in her bathroom. Another has caused her wall paper to come off the walls. We constantly hear the sound of water. Water dripping, rain, etc.

Suddenly a woman in a brightly colored Las Vegas style sequined gang is singing a wild musical number about loving Calypso music in an elevator.

You read that right. There are at least Four ersatz musical numbers, energetically performed by mainly one woman singer. Ocassionally she is joined by other dancers or back up singers. The first number is in an elevator. Later she returns and sings about needing a man who treats her right, with three other woman. There's another number which includes several male and female dancers. The songs are in Mandarin accept for part of one song which is actually in English. These musical numbers are related to the film because they take place in the hall ways of the apartment building (or elevator) and because I suppose you could see them as fantasies of the woman character –though they are not actually linked to her in any discernible manner. I figured maybe by the end of the film they would make more sense.

There's a final musical number which is a little different but it's a stretch to make a good enough excuse for the strange musical numbers except that they are weird fantasy moments in the middle of a long ponderous, allegory of a film.

Eventually, we learn from new reports that there's a disease which has been called Taiwan Fever which may be spread by c-ockroaches (hey epinions censors way to go !!). They make people act a bit like insects. Crawl around on the ground, seek out dark humid places to hide out in, etc.

Well we see a couple of these. One man is taken away by several others out of the apartment complex. We've heard some voices from another apartment dweller earlier and it might be related to them. I couldn't tell you.

The woman gets a little obsessed and she sprays bug spray all over her apartment and even up through the hole in the ceiling.

At the indoor business mall, a man is crawling around in the shadows making weird noises when the grocer opens up his shop. When the grocer gets closer to the man the man scurries away and hides in a a big hole in the wall.

Fumigators appear in the mall area where the grocer's shop is and he must leave.. He goes back home and his place stinks of bug spray... so he opens the doors of his apartment to help air it out.

Am I making this film seem really exciting to you? Does it seem fascinatingly bizarre and strange to you?

Let me assure you that the film is slow and ponderous and paced not like a scurrying c-ockroach but like an overheated slug.

It's depressing, claustrophobic and strange. We have no idea who the characters really are and you feel like the 95 minute film is close to three hours long.

Does anything ever happen?

SPOILER

I'll tell you if you want to know.


The grocer, makes the hole in his floor/her ceiling a little bigger and sticks his foot down into the hole. He almost gets it stuck and the woman almost sees the leg hanging down from her ceiling.
But he removes it before he's discovered.

At the very end of the film, the women acts more like an insect and crawls around her apartment and under a huge pile of toilet paper and bowl of noodle packages. The upstairs neighbor
makes the hole in the ceiling even bigger and slides down the hole into her apartment.

Then the man and woman do an odd musical number....

End of movie.

What? That's it.

END OF SPOILER


Yes at the end of the movie you'll probably find yourself going... what? That's it?

I kept thinking as the film slowly progressed that like many foreign films, particularly ones I have seen from Taiwan, that scenes and actions were being meticulous set up for a reason. Over long shots of watching a woman sleep, and then wake up and then discover water on her floor and cry, and take her time getting out of her bed, and falling into the water sometimes have a purpose in films of this type. They set a mood, they connect, they make more sense later on. There can be a texture, and mood created with scenes like this.

There can be. But not in this film.

The entire film could have been told just as effectively in about a half hour. Actually in about ten minutes, but some of the claustrophobic and gloom and doom feeling does need some repetition to work properly.

There's really nothing more to say about the film. I found it to be well made on a production level for a low budget, art house type of film.

It bored me. It will bore most people.

An end credit gives special thanks to the '50s/60's Hong Kong actress and pop singer Grace Chang for her songs which are still around "to comfort us in the year 2000.

The film takes seemingly forever to get started, then for several minutes is a bit interesting, atmospheric, bizzare and a little silly. Then boredom returns and you keep waiting for your investment of time and patience to pay off.

It didn't for me.

Christopher Jarmick,is the author of The Glass Coccon with Serena F. Holder a steamy suspense thriller which is now available (glasscocoon@hotmail for details).

Original portions of this review Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 2001. The above work is protected by international copyright law.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older