Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang wrote and directed Stray Dogs in 2017. Seeing it is not like seeing other films. There are two meanings to the word see. One is mechanical in that a person either sees or doesn’t see a thing. Either you are witness to something or you are not. The second definition is to understand, as in “I see what you mean.” Stray Dogs exists in a murky middle ground where we are witness to unfolding imagery but we don’t fully see what is happening or why. The viewer is constantly aware that he or she is watching a film. There is very little to draw you in. Most films, art house or not, try to some degree to transport you into their world. In Stray Dogs we remain an observer.
