Customer Reviews

What Time Is it There?

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ming-liang Tsai's films are nothing like what most audiences are used to as his films have very little, or almost no, dialogue. This means that the dynamic force of Tsai's films are the images and the scenes that he creates with a meticulous perfection as if each scene could be hanging by itself in the Louvre. Through doing this the audience is compelled to participate cerebrally and try to make there own decisions on what Tsai is trying to say. Even so, Tsai creates a story where each scene is interconnected in a very distinct manner. It should also be mentioned that Tsai has been compared to cinematic geniuses such as Robert Bresson and Jacques Tati.

What Time Is It There? begins with an opening scene where an old man sits in melancholic loneliness next to the kitchen table smoking a cigarette. The scene goes on for a good five minutes as the old man struggles with the inhaling and exhaling of the cigarette before he departs the earthly world. The old man is the main character's father, Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-Sheng), who works as a street vendor selling watches in Taipei, Taiwan. Hsiao-kang is a Buddhist and he believes in reincarnation, which means that he must follow certain guidelines in order to help his father have the best possible reincarnation.

Through Hsiao-kang's work he meets the attractive Shiang-chyi (Chen Shiang-Chyi) who wants to buy his personal watch as she finds it very appealing. At first Hsiao-kang refuses as he is in mourning and it would violate the guidelines of his belief. However, after some thinking Hsiao-kang agrees to sell his watch to Shiang-chyi as she needs it for her trip to Paris, France. It is this moment of the film that launches an emotional journey in the shadow of a spiritual crisis as Hsiao-kang worries about his father's reincarnation. Initially it brings amusement to the audience as Hsiao-kang attempts to set as many watches as he can in Taipei in French time as his watch is currently with Shiang-chyi in France.

Tsai playfully uses the moment of selling the watch to create an astonishing cinematic event that is abundantly rich of subtle humor and simultaneous sadness. This conflict of feelings also brings a homage to François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, which Hsiao-kang buys in order to learn more about France. In addition, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Antoine Doinel in 400 Blows, makes a small cameo in the film where he meets Shiang-chyi on a bench in a graveyard as she is looking for a phone number to someone, assumingly Hsiao-kang. This scene conveys a strong sense of connection between Hsiao-kang and Shiang-chyi, yet the physical disconnection between the two in shape of distance in very real.

What Time Is It There? presents a brilliant cinematic experience that goes far beyond what one can see on the screen. It also offers tribute to cinema itself as it seem to have influenced Tsai in several way. Lastly, it provides much pondering for those who seek a stimulating cinematic experience, which will not be forgotten by those who fully experienced Tsai at his best.

I've never reviewed before, but I just had to make a point against some of the negative reviews. To those reviewers who claim that What Time is it There? is full of long, boring shots, I emphatically suggest that you rethink the reason you like to watch movies. If you're into movies for action, gags, gimmicks, and stars, then yes, stay away from this one. But to watch this movie with a focus on its fantastically constructed shots, moving portraits of the human soul, and powerful images of modern city life is to understand why sometimes the architecture of a shot can speak volumes more than catchy dialogue and special effects.

I actually got a chance to hear Tsai-Ming a few months ago, where he joked with the audience before a screening of this film, speaking through an interpreter and saying: "Other people ask me why I use such little dialogue. I ask them, 'Why do you use so much?'" He made a similar comment about the lack of recognizable musical soundtracks in his film. What the director is trying to explain here is that there are other ways of capturing attention and making a point, and this movie is incredibly effective at that. What Time is it There? is not only a powerful story about loneliness, familial isolation, and cultural identity, but shot so marvelously that nearly every shot took my breath away. I highly, highly recommend this film to anyone interested in the construction of a shot, and how the way that a character interacting with his or her space can be even more effective than dialogue in conveying their emotional relationships to themselves and the people around them.

As far as this DVD specfically, I can tell you that this movie is one to be seen on the big screen. So if you have an enormous television, you're in for a treat. However, the beautiful simplicity of the bare shots and the architectural construction both interior and exterior shines through no matter what format you're watching it on.

Many have griped of its laconic pace (to put it nicely), but I barely noticed the length of Ming-liang Tsai's elegiac masterpiece - quite the contrary, his concept of "time" is central to the movie. You'll notice there's not a single camera movement in the movie, everything is staged within a particular confined space, and that's because there's not a second of the movie that's not particularly planned out. It tells the story of three characters aching for anything else in their lives, and it does so with unobtrusive observation, a full creation and specification of every nuance of their actions. That makes every action - the restrained ones, the quirky ones, and the sexual ones - a quiet declaration of longing. That is to say the events of the movie are ordinary, for some, too painstakingly ordinary. For those that sign onto its stark stule, though, it'll be an ordinariness that, with nearly silent gestures, moves to the transcendent.

This movie is great. There is a quality to how it is filmed that really just reaches out and grabs you. The movie is well paced (some might call it slow) with lots of meticulously constructed long shots. The composition of these long shots is incredible, each detail in the background, every bit of lighting has been so carefully crafted to put you right there. It's an incredibly lonely film, but beautiful. If you liked "Down By Law" you'll probably enjoy this for many of the same reasons.

Characters here spend lone minutes frozen, doing nothing and saying nothing, as the camera lingers for long periods. Many shots are from a middle to long distance with the only sound the dull hum of the city for background music. This is a meditation on loneliness. A watch seller obsesses over a customer. The customer visits Paris and seems alone. The mother of the watch seller mourns her late husband. There is comedy and tragedy here. Very slow, but still watchable. Reminded me of a Jim Jarmusch film.

Melancholy and sweet and weirdly humorous; our young hero begins the movie in impossibly bleak circumstances... and goes down from there. The end result is almost comedy: "normal" life is mostly hiding out watching the 400 Blows over and over and aimlessly spending days at the worst possible job imaginable. The entire movie slowly, quietly digresses into a more and more eccentric orbit as our hero follows his strange compulsion to reset every clock he sees to Paris time.

If movies were Harry Potter characters, this one would be Luna Lovegood.

What Time is it There? is one of those films that works better on paper or in the memory than while you're actually watching it - there's only so much non-communication shot in static camera setups you can take before boredom sets in, and two hours of it gets to be pretty heavy going at times. It's full of quirky and enjoyable touches, and one outstanding scene where the lead character's mother unloads her loss on a pet fish, but it does seem overly compelled to try your patience at times: after all, how many scenes of a guy urinating into bottles or plastic bags do you really need in one movie? Still, there is a great cameo from Jean Pierre Leaud.

The emotional impact of this film and the means by which it achieves its portrayal of three lives in their search for meaning and how we assign meaning within spaces of time is nothing short of beautiful. Its a dramatic contrast to Western films with loaded dialogue, camera gimmicks, and superfluous music scores.

Using the humble film technique of restraint., director Tsai Ming Liang presents a narrative (and an homage to 'The 400 Blows') that unfolds over simple 5 minute or so shots with a camera fixed into position. Perfect timing and stunning compositions contribute to making this film very aware of itself and the sequential nature of both time and film.

Although it puzzles, it affects.
I'm not sure I understand but I sense the loss (thoughtime. . .is. . .disjointed), the madness (Is there any connection between different stories here? Or, just the watch?), the loneliness of everyone (allthetime. . .all. . .the disjointedtime). But, despite my inability to understand, I will remember: the floating suitcase, the traffic reflected by the skyscrappers, the woman's pained face, the man fronting the Ferris wheel. . .

I'm as open as the next person to expanding my cinematic horizons. Case in point: the Korean film '301/302' - distasteful to many, I stomached my way through it (apologies for those bad puns to anyone who has seen that film).

"What Time Is It There?" is a different story. I tried - really tried - to force my way through a complete viewing. Just impossible. I lasted 65 or so seemingly interminable minutes. I see here on these pages that Ming-liang Tsai has crafted an homage to Truffaut's "400 Blows." Honestly, when I'm forced to watch a guy urinate into a bag for two whole minutes (no exaggeration), the last thing I'm thinking about is the subtlety of some guy's homage.

I'll bump this up to two stars because given the other reviews posted here, I can see that a true student of film can discern these elements of Truffaut. I respect that. I just think that this movie is (very emphatically) not going to be everyone's cup of tea.