A City of Sadness

I also deeply admired Italian neorealist films like Bicycle Thieves. The way they captured reality and the lives of ordinary people with such honesty and simplicity really resonated with me, and I tried to bring that spirit to my own work, especially in Platform.

I remember watching A City of Sadness when I was studying film in Chicago. It really opened my eyes. Such a beautiful and complex film. It confirmed for me that cinema could go beyond the narrative, that it could be a journey and an experience. Hou Hsiao-Hsien is one of my heroes. His films really affected my way of seeing and my way of making films.