The Beautiful Washing Machine

A very original and also very strange film, The Beautiful Washing Machine is a kind of surrealistic comedy in which the washing machine in the title plays the leading role. A washing machine with its own life, and with a silent young woman, who may well be the soul of the miraculous and yet so everyday machine. The film is set in contemporary Kuala Lumpur. The film maker turns out to have a predilection for urbane nocturnal locations like supermarkets and car parks. The film was shot in lengthy, meticulously composed images, which could mean a serious look at modern-day alienation, if it did not reveal such a great sense of humour. Teoh, now a bachelor again, buys a second-hand washing machine – the only green one among all the white ones. The green machine turns out to be bad-tempered company. It’s not easy to predict when he (or, as the press information states repeatedly: ‘she’) will or will not work. The machine is also inexplicably accompanied by a young woman whom Teoh immediately uses as a housekeeper. In the second half of the film, the washing machine swaps owner and there too, he/she dominates everyday life in an inimitable way. The bizarre scenes in the film include hardly any dialogue and are reminiscent of just how effective the great comics from the silent era were. Lee is often compared with Tsai Ming-liang, but a comparison with Buster Keaton would not be out of place. (GjZ)