Taking time out in Taiwan

Hsiao-kang loses himself in Truffaut to forget his grief

By Sarah Buckley BBC News Online

What Time is it There? is a tough but rewarding film from Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang about grinding loneliness and lost communication.

The mystery girl is equally lonely in Paris

Watch seller Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), grieving after the loss of his father, has a brief encounter with a beautiful woman (Chen Shiang-chyi) who persuades him to sell her the watch off his wrist.

The girl leaves for Paris, and Hsiao-kang is left to deal with both his and his mother's grief, in the grimy house they share in Taiwan.

In a bid to escape that reality, and establish a connection with the mysterious girl, Hsiao-kang re-sets all the clocks in the house - and then the city - to Paris time.

Silent sorrow

The sense of passing time - and its tendency to stretch for those who are lonely - is communicated in the film's tendency to silence: it has is no music and little dialogue.

Hsiao-kang's mother escapes reality in fantasy

The long, static, wide shots also give the film a detached and objective perspective on the characters' misery.

But it is lightened by flashes of humour - much of it absurd.

Hsiao-kang's mother believes the changed clocks in the house are a sign that the spirit of her dead husband has returned. She cooks for him every night, just in case.

She even remonstrates with her son when he goes to kill a cockroach - in case it is his father's spirit.

Paris blues

Ironically Hsiao-kang's new-found comfort - a virtual life in Paris - is affording little happiness for the girl, who wanders the streets alone and lies awake at night.

All characters are spatially or temporally dislocated.

The potential sticking plaster for loneliness - sex - is the one thing that, in the film's time-frame at least, brings the characters together, as they appear to have their various sexual encounters simultaneously.

But even here, those connections are desultory - and again humorous: Hsiao-kang's mother is reduced to masturbating with a household object.

This film is not for everyone. It is extraordinarily slow, but beautifully shot, and its lugubrious action gives the audience plenty of time for reflection.

What Time is it There? is at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London (020 7930 3647) until Wed 31 July.