Closing Time
An absorbing fusion of observational documentary and audiovisual artwork, Swiss director Nicole Vögele’s prize-winning second feature is a masterly exercise in slow cinema. Mr. Kuo and Mrs. Lin run an all-night diner on a busy corner in Taipei, serving food to the city’s night workers and party animals. With its meticulous focus on in-between moments and dreamlike urban moodscapes, CLOSING TIME combines meditative beauty with a subtle, humanistic critique of capitalist workplace drudgery.
Mr. Kuo, Mrs. Lin
- Notes From Ed LachmanThis could be considered a hybrid type documentary, but I see it more as a poetic narrative within a lyrical story about a late-night eatery in Taipei. The owner of the restaurant and other characters enact a Zen exercise, observing customers’ isolation in the city, mostly at night.
