TIM YIP
Roll the Tape: An Interview with Tim Yip
This spring, the Oscar and BAFTA winner’s latest and unprecedented cinematic experiment will reshape the boundaries of theatrical experience.
INTERVIEWER JANE ZHENG
Released globally on the streaming service MUBI, 24 March 2022 sees the stirring start of an original film genre led by Tim Yip’s Love Infinity. Pioneering in creativity throughout his career with projects including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Lili, this Chinese multidisciplinary artist is once again redefining the boundaries of expression. Centering the film’s discussion on human behaviour in real and imaginative spheres, Yip takes the perspective of a young woman, Stella, and invites us into a contrasting ‘Grey London’ and ‘Colourful London’ that seems to be disjointed but actually interlinks.
Stella in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
It is difficult to summarise the plot of Love Infinity that requires the individual interpretation of each viewer, but that is not to say that this will be a few fragmented hours in the cinema. As we advance digitally, we have entered an era where nearly everything is regulated either consciously or unconsciously. Under a time of economic and political uncertainty, we slowly become unaware of what controls and stimulates our behaviour – there is a vicinity in which we limit ourselves. This absurd reality is what inspired Yip – “I see this group of people in East London who are still dreaming, who still believe in innovation and creativity. What I want to show through my work is that there are still people like them that cling to their vision in this chaotic world.” The purpose of Love Infinity is strong and resonates – it presents the possibilities of love without restraint in an enclosed environment. As imagination and reality gradually blurs on screen, what unfolds is how East Londoners continues to remain true to themselves.
Daniel Lismore in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
“I shot and produced Love Infinity because it was necessary for me to fulfill my inner need,” Yip explains his personal departure of this initiative. “Working on big production films, I gradually felt a need that is planted deeply inside the roots of my creativity. I wanted to find the feeling we had when we watched films in the 60s, so I was keen to frame something new.” His approach to fulfill his own desires was to film with a simple Canon 5D camera mostly by himself. “I didn’t have a plan for any of the shots, I just filmed like an autobiography, because if there was a plan, the sense of being staged occurs.” The result was a heap of footage – live footage – that turned itself into a story. In other words, it is a compilation of East Londoner’s unique way of seeing how the world is built.
This “group” which Yip describes is amongst the most bizarre yet talented community in the UK, if not the world. Vivienne Westwood, Gilbert & George, Daniel Lismore, Stephen Jones, Pandemonia, Stik, Sue Webster, and Jonny Woo. Why them? Because he wanted to question what is left of humans, what is left of our potential. Seeing the art film’s trailer, some might be confused about the title choice. Tim’s definition of love answers the confusion.
Stephen Jones in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
“When I saw Pandemonia, covering themselves in latex from head to toe even during summer, I started to wonder why they are so subservient to the world they created. I delved into the topic of freedom of self-expression, and that’s when I realised that this bravery to confront their own emotions, and to be who they are, is what this group of East Londoners are committed to. This is what I recognise as love, and what I want to express as love too.”
Pandemonia in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
As a director that has accomplished many projects surrounding the theme of love, whether it is Rouge (1987) that paved way to his career in film, or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) that paved way to his triumph at the Oscars and BAFTA, love to Yip needs to be something irresistible – similar to the way the East Londoners in Love Infinity can’t defy their desire to self-expression. In simpler words, in Yip’s point of view, love needs some element of craziness. As he expands this craziness of love into this story, he asks: how far into our dreams can love take us to?
Gilbert and George, Lili and Stella in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
Yet, Love Infinity does not constrain itself to ‘love’, but further grows on Yip’s recurring theme: the human condition under time and space. Yip is a coherent artist who creates in a domain where each project intersperses to advance on investigations of recurring topics. Approaching the human condition in a perspective of studying “human desire in time and space”, Lili is a perfect explanation to Yip’s artistic scope. Beginning as bronze statue named Desire that wept real tears, Lili evolved to become an essential part of his creation – a rather stereotypical humanlike Chinese young woman that has articulated joints and wears a pair of sunglasses. This crucial figure appears and reappears within the screening time of Love Infinity but exists outside the medium of film. She lives on Instagram; in photos; in conversations; in memories.
Steall and Lili in the film Love Infinity, 2022.
What Lili embodies is the current age of signs and symbols. “Lili is a project inspired by the fact that she is not a real person,” Yip explains. “Undeniably, we often get to know people in a symbolic way nowadays, which absolutely affects our facial features. Our faces are standardised with specific characters. We live in a conceptual world that is distanced from the real. But when Lili is part of the scene, suspicion about the level of authenticity of the scene arises, because the public knows she’s fake.” As we scroll through Lili’s feed on Instagram (@lilili_untitled), the endless number of selfies and photos captivates a loss of time and space. It is a peculiar feeling where the borders between what is real and what is fake begins to fade – the worldview presented in Love Infinity too. “It’s different to metaverse, instead of starting from a single point of construction, she absorbs every possibility of the environment, as if the simulated space in her world moves forward.” This immersive contact is exactly what the artist intended – an interactive process of questioning what shapes mankind’s present-day and what might shape our kind’s future.
Lili in public.
Linking to Yip’s understanding of films. “Movies nowadays is merely for the entertainment, but it makes it meaningless to me. The issue with films now is that even when you see scenes of outer space, you don’t feel the surprise anymore. It lacks the impact, and to create that cinematic impact is what I’m pursuing in this industry.” Believing that there are various ways to view and explain the world in which we live in, the fundamental basis of his creativity is discovering means to express the feelings he encounters in life and imagination. His solution to reinventing the spiritual impact of films is a unification: “I’m trying to melt away the distinguishing lines between film, stage production, theatre, art, and blend everything together for it to become my way of storytelling.”
Asian cinema is currently undergoing a period of adjustment. No one quite knows how the future of this significant share of the industry will transform into. The truth which Yip has to acknowledge is that “it depends a lot on the general environment.” The fluctuations of society remain as a patent influence on artistic expression, but this is not to suggest that pessimism is the only way forward. When asked about what genres of films he wants to explore further, Yip returns to the traditional: “Recently I’ve been wanting to do modern classics. You have to get the classics right first before you can reach a higher level in the future. It’s going to be a difficult but rewarding process.” As someone hugely influenced by the culture of his homeland, the Eastern spirit is also an unignorable part of his future agenda. “I myself have a love for my own traditional culture. How Chinese tradition is presented and how to find its modernity and complexity will always remain as one of my tasks to accomplish. What I’m looking forward to is it becoming more inclusive and artistic.”
Tim Yip & Lili
Launched in this Spring, Love Infinity is the beginning of Tim Yip’s many more pioneering projects to come. Reflecting upon a topic which resonates with the current audience – the contemporary reality – Yip has once again managed to question his viewers in a direct conversation through the vehicle of the seventh art: does love have its limits, or is it us that limits ourselves?
All images courtesy of Tim Yip Studio.