What Time Is It There?

The screening on 4 November will be introduced by Professor Victor Fan (KCL).

What Time Is It There? (2001) reunites Tsai Ming-liang with his muse Lee Kang-sheng and longtime collaborators Chen Shiang-chyi and Lu Yi-ching in a melancholic meditation on time, distance and longing. The story continues in the epilogue The Skywalk Is Gone (2002), which reconnects Hsiao-kang and Shiang-chyi before their paths cross again in Tsai’s later The Wayward Cloud (2005).

Hsiao-kang, a watch vendor in Taipei, sells a dual-time watch to Shiang-chyi before she leaves for Paris. As she wanders the unfamiliar city alone, Hsiao-kang becomes increasingly fixated on Paris, watching Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and resetting clocks across Taipei to Paris time. Across Taipei and Paris, their solitary lives unfold in parallel, mirroring each other through absence, chance encounters and quiet gestures of connection.

Cast:
Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, Lu Yi-Ching, Miao Tien

Please arrive promptly - we do not show adverts.

Part of Made in Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, France, 2001, 116m.