I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone

The first film directed by Tsai Ming-Liang in the capital of Malaysia, the country where he was born, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone features Lee Kang-Sheng in a double starring role, as he plays both a comatose patient and a severely injured homeless man. Two caregivers, a Bangladeshi immigrant who looks after the injured man and a woman who looks after the man in the coma, form a complex web of attraction around the characters played by Lee. Meanwhile, the Kuala Lumpa metropolis is engulfed by smog. The film received the CinemAvvenire Award at Venice Festival.