What Time Is It There? – 2001 Ming-liang Tsai

Though there is a film between (1998’s The Hole– which I have not yet seen)- What Time Is It There? from Ming-liang Tsai picks up right where 1997’s The River left off- with one of his greatest compositions and shots. The film here starts with a long take (four minutes) of an old man (Tien Miao—in almost all of Ming-liang Tsai’s films) through two open doors. He’s eating alone from a little oven (green- which will come up again and again here) in the foreground right. The doors are green. He moves and starts smoking- now framed through three doors. A gorgeous frame. Ming-liang Tsai, may have more in common with Hsiao-Hsien Hou than Ozu but you can’t watch an old man smoking through a doorway (Early Summer) in a stunning frame and not be an Ozu acolyte
His signature style: static camera, medium to medium long distance, long takes—the next shot after the opening is of a narrow hall at a funeral. This is a generational story (Ozu) about a son and his mother in mourning for their father and husband. Often shot in isolation, solemn, silent, eating, pondering
even when characters are together in the frame/scenario they are often silent, in isolation, unable to connect

his signature style: static camera, medium to medium long distance, long takes

The son (Ming-liang Tsai male-muse Kang-sheng Lee) is a watch salesman and he reluctantly sells an heirloom watch from his father. The girl he sells it to, who goes to Paris, becomes a central figure in the film (also this black cloud of ennui malaise (Antonioini) over her)
A hilarious scenario where Kang-sheng Lee’s character is testing the durability of a watch on the ground
He’s scared at night, echoes of bad karma (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)—there is like a spiritual sickness like the neck pain in The River
Like say Jim Jarmusch or Roy Andersson (an important comparison for Ming-liang Tsai) Ming-liang Tsai has his own rhythms and it does take some adjusting- but it is rewarding

Like say Jim Jarmusch or Roy Andersson (an important comparison for Ming-liang Tsai) Ming-liang Tsai has his own rhythms and it does take some adjusting- but it is rewarding

Watching The 400 Blows (Leaud is in the film later on a green park bench) for extended periods twice – Leaud is somehow part of the connective tissue (the son in Taiwan is watching The 400 Blows missing his watch and his father) and the girl in Paris runs into him on the bench. Reincarnation in Paris in the ending

Watching The 400 Blows (Leaud is in the film later on a green park bench) for extended periods twice – Leaud is somehow part of the connective tissue (the son in Taiwan is watching The 400 Blows missing his watch and his father) and the girl in Paris runs into him on the bench. Reincarnation in Paris in the ending

A great frame composition of the living room, the green hue to the rest of the room, green aquarium, but there’s a red light from the father’s shrine
Freezing clocks, clocks dominating the mise-en-scene of many of the single-shot set-ups– a tone poem with a genuine motif
A great frame of the water wheel in the foreground left with the digital clock in the background right, a green hallway, green chairs by the pond
Eating in isolation, mourning—they all have sort of empty sexual experiences (with son, mother, girl in Paris) separately—connected
A sublime final frame and composition with the son in front of the Ferris Wheel in Paris like a big giant clock