Photo: Chen Shiang-chyi as Shiang-chyi in Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There?
The emotionally disconnected characters of Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? wade through their sterile Taipei surroundings hopelessly grasping for a piece of human comfort. After the death of the film's patriarchal figure (Miao Tien, visually ensnared throughout the lonely opening scene), his wife (Lu Yi-ching) and son (Lee Kang-sheng) become victims of the mundane and the repetitive: she to reincarnation and he to bottles and plastic bags-turned-urine depositories (he's afraid to go to the bathroom at night for fear of bumping into his father's spirit). Kang's job as a watch salesman morphs into an existential crisis: The wristwatch he sells to an aggressive young girl, Shiang-Chyi (Chen Shiang-chyi), becomes a link between Parisian and Taipei loneliness. Initially wary of selling the watch (he believes it to have a connection to his father), Kang caves in to the girl's aggressive demands. When Shiang-Chyi travels abroad, though, Kang resorts to a bizarre yet humorous comfort ritual: he sets all the Taipei clocks he sees to Paris time in a pained, abstract desire to connect with Shiang-Chyi.
The emotionally disconnected characters of Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? wade through their sterile Taipei surroundings hopelessly grasping for a piece of human comfort. After the death of the film's patriarchal figure (Miao Tien, visually ensnared throughout the lonely opening scene), his wife (Lu Yi-ching) and son (Lee Kang-sheng) become victims of the mundane and the repetitive: she to reincarnation and he to bottles and plastic bags-turned-urine depositories (he's afraid to go to the bathroom at night for fear of bumping into his father's spirit). Kang's job as a watch salesman morphs into an existential crisis: The wristwatch he sells to an aggressive young girl, Shiang-Chyi (Chen Shiang-chyi), becomes a link between Parisian and Taipei loneliness. Initially wary of selling the watch (he believes it to have a connection to his father), Kang caves in to the girl's aggressive demands. When Shiang-Chyi travels abroad, though, Kang resorts to a bizarre yet humorous comfort ritual: he sets all the Taipei clocks he sees to Paris time in a pained, abstract desire to connect with Shiang-Chyi.
