What Time Is It There?


What Time Is It There? is a 2001 Taiwanese film directed by Tsai Ming-liang. It stars Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, and Lu Yi-ching.

Plot

Hsiao-kang is a street vendor in Taipei who sells watches out of a briefcase. His father dies. Soon afterwards, Shiang-chyi stops by his stand to buy a dual-time watch, as she is taking a trip to Paris. She likes the watch on Hsiao-kang's wrist, which is out of stock. At first, he refuses to sell his watch, explaining that a recent death in his family would mean bad luck for her. She is persistent and eventually convinces him to sell the watch to her. Hsiao-kang's mother mourns her husband's death; she leaves out food and water for him and thinks that he could be reincarnated. Hsiao-kang watches a film set in Paris, The 400 Blows. During his daily routines, he changes every watch and clock he encounters to Paris time. Meanwhile, in Paris, Shiang-chyi experiences deep loneliness in her hotel room, shops, restaurants, and the subway. Hsiao-kang's mother notices that the clock in her common space has changed time and concludes that her husband is back. She turns off the lights in the house and blocks all the windows. When Hsiao-kang raises a fuss, she tells him that his father’s spirit fears the light, and the two argue.
Shiang-chyi visits Père Lachaise cemetery and has a chance encounter with Jean-Pierre Léaud, the lead actor of The 400 Blows. At a restaurant, she meets a woman from Hong Kong. They converse in Mandarin, her new friend takes Shisng-chyi in, along with her luggage. They sleep in the same bed and kiss before the Chinese woman turns away. Hsiao-kang's mother dresses up and seats herself at the dining table, where a plate of food is set out for her husband. She downs several shots of liquor and retires to her bedroom, where she uses a wicker pillow to masturbate. Hsiao-kang spends the night out and then has sex with a prostitute in his car. While he is sleeping, the prostitute steals his briefcase full of watches. Hsiao-kang goes home, strips away the blankets blacking out the apartment balcony, gazes at his father’s portrait, covers his sleeping mother with his jacket, and lies down next to her. In one of Paris’s parks, Shiang-chyi cries while sitting on a bench by a pool. She falls asleep, and some kids take her suitcase and put it in the pool. Hsiao-kang's father appears. He takes the suitcase out of the water and walks away, heading toward a lit-up Ferris wheel.

Cast

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 54 reviews and an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though it requires patience to view, What Time Is It There?s exploration of loneliness is both elegant and haunting." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Awards