Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s 1998 film “The Hole” is receiving renewed attention with a fresh 35-millimeter print debuting at Lincoln Center, followed by a screening at Metrograph. Originally commissioned in the late 1990s as part of a collection addressing the turn of the millennium, the film offers a minimalist, darkly comic take on the anticipated Y2K apocalypse.

Set entirely within a Taipei public housing building and confined largely to interior spaces, “The Hole” depicts two residents—a man and a woman living in apartments directly above and below one another—who refuse to evacuate despite government warnings. The narrative unfolds around a leak that gradually opens a sizable gap in the man’s floor and the woman’s ceiling, compelling them into a slapstick and somewhat adversarial coexistence.

Neither character is named, with Lee Kang-sheng, a regular in Tsai’s oeuvre, playing the silent upstairs resident, and Yang Kuei-mei, a well-known cabaret singer who had previously worked with Tsai, portraying the downstairs woman. As the story progresses, the film incorporates elements of absurdity and surrealism, including an outbreak of an unspecified epidemic which triggers frantic cockroach-like behavior in the tenants, drawing subtle parallels to Kafkaesque themes of alienation and decay.

The expanding hole becomes a physical and metaphorical chasm through which the characters interact indirectly, turning their relationship into a series of actions rather than direct communication. Instances of this strained connection include the man vomiting through the ceiling, met by the woman’s retaliatory use of insecticide. Despite such exchanges, “The Hole” maintains a calm, almost serene tone throughout its exploration of urban isolation and societal breakdown at the millennium’s brink.

Originally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the International Critics Prize, “The Hole” was part of the 2000 Seen By project, which compiled films from various countries reflecting on the year 2000. It screened in the United States twice in 2002 at the Museum of Modern Art and received favorable critical attention. Now, over two decades later, its minimalist style and thematic concerns appear increasingly relevant, prompting this new theatrical revival.