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What Time Is It There? (2001)

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From Time Out Film Guide

Is Tsai ploughing the same furrow once too often? Soon after the death of his father (Miao), Hsiao Kang (Lee) sells a wrist-watch to a girl (Chen) who's about to fly to France. The film then crosscuts between her miserable time in Paris and his increasingly manic behaviour in Taipei (stealing public clocks, resetting timepieces to French time, coping with his batty mother) - until the twin storylines move towards a mysterious synthesis, helped along by Léaud, who enters Kang's life on tape (as Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups) and hers in person (as a randy old man in a cemetery). It all looks and feels a little too much like a rerun of The River, but the emphases on time, coping with bereavement and possible reincarnations give it a reasonably fresh spin. And the underlying black humour is still present and correct: how can you destroy time when some idiot invents a new unbreakable watch?

Author: TR

Time Out Film Guide

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Jan 26 2008 12:33 The film was more surrealistic in invention than dramatic.Hsiao Kang's keeping in touch with time from another country(France) literally by altering all the watches(he sells)and public clocks wherever he finds them.No real reason why,just that he sold his own watch to a girl who travels to France.He also has to cope with his mother's increasingly strange behaviour blocking out all the electric lights,cooking meals for her deceased husband,preparing for his reincarnation,even as a cockroach, which her son feeds to the fish.There was a strong use of static camera shots,some of them beautiful.There was a great reference to French cinema.Hsiao Kang watches The 400 Blows young actorAntoine Doinel and the Taiwanese girl he sold the watch to actually meets him in person in a cemetry.I thought all the characters were rather eccentric(puppets of the director) and therefore not moving,rather like the camera work.

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