Un Certain Regard: “Parking” by Mong-Hong Chung

Screening in Un Certain Regard, Parking by Mong-Hong Chung is the second directorial debut of the day, a competitor for the Caméra d’Or. The Taiwanese feature describes an eventful night in the life of Chen Mo. It’s Mothers’ Day, and he is supposed to have dinner with his wife. Unfortunately, he can’t move his car, because somebody has hemmed him in by double-parking. Chen Mo spends hours knocking on doors in an apartment building, trying to find the driver, leading to some strange encounters and unbelievable adventures.

“There are almost one million and eight hundred thousand registered vehicles in Taipei, but the total parking spaces, including private and public, are about five hundred thousand. For most vehicles, they are either running on the road or illegally parked. The movie is not to discuss this problem or to try to help the government solve the problem, but to talk about human predicaments in a modern urban environment using the parking space as a metaphor.”