We eat, excrete, sleep, and get up;
This is our world.
All we have to do after that,
Is to die.
           Ikkyū Sōjun (1394–1481)

Near an open-air market in a neighborhood of Kuching, Malaysia, an abandoned building with a faded blue facade and a large sign that reads “Cathay” is being steadily overtaken by weeds. Eventually, like all things, it will be consigned to oblivion. Once teeming with people rushing to see the latest films from Hong Kong, Hollywood, Japan, and India, the Cathay is now a vestige of a golden age of cinema in a city once home to a dozen stand-alone movie theaters. As a young boy, Tsai Ming-liang was taken to these hallowed spaces “twice a day, every day” by his grandparents, fomenting an early devotion to cinema.