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![\"Three](\"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2009\/11\/18-a.jpg\")
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Early in his career, during state sponsored revival of a \u2018national\u2019 film culture, Hou like other New Taiwanese filmmakers was strongly inspired by Italian neo-realism of postwar eras, his films The Boys from Fengkuei, A Summer at Grandpa’s, The Time to Live and the Time to Die <\/em>and Dust in the Wind <\/em>combined autobiographical subject matter with a \u2018realist\u2019 aesthetic characterized by on location shooting, use of non-actors and dialogues in regional dialects.<\/p>\n The \u2018break\u2019 came with A City of Sadness<\/em>. Released in the year of Tiananmen Square massacre, it dealt with one of the most traumatic events of post-war Taiwanese history, the 1947 massacre in Taipei of thousands of civilians at the hands of recently arrived Kuomintang soldiers from Chinese mainland. But instead of giving a panoramic view of the events (even the massacre takes place off-screen), Hou concentrated on a particular family\u2019s tryst with the tragedy. The film went on to win Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival and became, arguably, the best known Taiwanese film abroad. But at home, a group of critics severely criticized the film, bringing out a book entitled Death of the New Cinema<\/em> in 1992 that squarely blamed Hou\u2019s aesthetic formalism for blunting political edge of the film\u2019s subject2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n It could be argued that the critics\u2019 negative appraisal of A City of Sadness <\/em>betrays their unwillingness or inability to recognize Hou\u2019s underlying project of not just challenging official \u2018history\u2019 (the government prohibited public discussion on the subject and made a formal apology as late as 19953<\/a><\/sup>) but more radically, questioning the Nationalist project of producing history. His next two films were continuations of this project, The Puppetmaster<\/em> which depicted five decades of Japanese colonial rule from 1895 to 1945 through the prism of amateur actor Li Tien-lu\u2019s memoirs and Good Men, Good women<\/em> which re-examined the fate of Taiwan’s leftist intellectuals in the war and post-war years, forming a \u2018historical\u2019 trilogy with A City of Sadness<\/em>. It became apparent from these films that Hou\u2019s interest was less in questioning official historical narrative, and more on the discursive limits such narratives pre-suppose and impose. It should to be noted – Hou approaches \u2018history\u2019 not as a realm of \u2018factual\u2019 records, where, disentangling \u2018fact\u2019 from \u2018fiction\u2019 would bring out the \u2018hidden\u2019 truth of events – his emphasis is rather on the historical<\/em>4<\/a><\/sup> (in the Hideggerean sense of the term) dimension, pertaining to what happens, how events get inscribed on people\u2019s body and mind, and how they are preserved or forgotten, yet retaining their force in the present.<\/p>\n Lately, Hou\u2019s films have moved onto a territory \u2013 urban youth culture, which is more often associated with his much esteemed contemporary \u2013 Edward Yang and the younger Tsai Min Liang. Millenium Mumbo<\/em> (2001), set in first year of the new millennium is ingeniously narrated by lead character Vicky\u2019s voiceover – looking back at her life – from ten years in the future. Swinging between two lovers, her party hopping existence is caught at a moment of (seemingly) timeless youth; in this film Hou introduced a new and almost idiosyncratic style, crafting a fragmentary and excessively minimalist narrative of contemporary aimless urban youth – high on libidinal energy, living on a perpetual \u2018now\u2019 without past or future. In a different vein, Caf\u00e9 Lumiere<\/em> (2003) (commissioned by Japanese studio Shochiku) designed as homage to Yasujiro Ozu (especially his 1953 classic Tokyo Story<\/em>) depicts the life of a semi-independent Japanese woman in contemporary Tokyo.<\/p>\n Hou\u2019s next film, Three Time <\/em>in a way brings together different phases of his past cinematic practice. The film is divided into three segments, each set at different points in Taiwan\u2019s past and present – the first entitled A time for Love<\/em> recalls Hou\u2019s pre- A City of Sadness <\/em>period (especially Dust in the Wind<\/em>); second – A time for Freedom<\/em> bears close relation to Flowers of Shanghai<\/em> and is also reminiscent of his \u2018historical trilogy\u2019, the third segment, A time for Youth<\/em> continues Hou\u2019s recent preoccupation with urban youth culture. Each segment deals with characters in love at crossroads of their lives; significantly, the cast is repeated as Taiwanese stars Shu Qi and Chang Chen play the lead pair in all three shorts (both delivering brilliant performance in each of them). This is not done in order to suggest actual or even symbolic reincarnation; rather, it is just one among other repetitions woven into the short\u2019s individual and collective fabric. What follows, is exploration of each short \u2013 in some details \u2013 and an attempt at grasping the effect produced by the film in its totality.<\/p>\n Opening shot: camera focuses on a tin lampshade for a few seconds, time enough for the superimposed caption entitled \u20181966 Koushiang\u2019 to register time and place of the narrative, then moves down to slim face of a young woman, lingering on her charming pout, following her flirtatious gaze to the figure of a youth bent over a pool table taking aim; while on soundtrack \u2013 The Platters playing \u2018Smoke gets in your eyes\u2019. There is not much of a plot to speak of, Chen (Chang Chen) gives Haruko – a girl working at the pool hall he frequents – a love letter before rushing off to home. When he comes back Haruko is gone and there is a new girl May (Shu Qi) in her place; predictably he falls for her in the course of an evening, but has to leave again, this time for military service. He writes to her though, and presumably gets a reply. But, by the time Chen is back in town (on a day\u2019s leave) May has left for another pool hall. Boy chases girl from one town to another, visiting pool halls and in desperation even her home, finally tracking her down in Huwei. Their time together is short since he has to report back to base camp next morning. In the final scene, as they are waiting for Chan\u2019s train in the rain, a close up shot focuses on their hands slowly drawing near, palms touching, the impossible longing of fingers intertwining, while on soundtrack Aphrodite\u2019s Childs\u2019 old pop tune \u2018Rain and Tears\u2019 plays on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The minimalism of plot and dialog is overwritten by intricate detailing of each frame. Densely packed mis en scenes<\/em> provide spatio-temporal grounding of the short, from May\u2019s fancy looking skirts and blouses to her hairstyle, Chang\u2019s cool look in short sleeved shirt to military cropped hair, the pool hall with its Japanese styled sliding doors, the railway time table with timings printed in English, and especially the English pop songs in soundtrack, each sign refers to the rapid Americanization of Taiwan in wake of domestic economic boom and participation in Vietnam War as a short-term military base for US troops. For all its cultural specificity, the film also captures a quintessentially idyllic 60\u2019s moment when love-sex-mass culture \u2018arrived\u2019 for many urban youths throughout the world. Hou\u2019s detached observational style never betrays any overt desire to pass judgment on the rapid social changes of that period; rather, there is a whiff of barely discernable nostalgia, enmeshed in each minute detail.<\/p>\n What captures and mobilizes these graphic and aural elements is camera movement. But this movement is temporal and not spatial, for even when camera glides in space it marks duration and tempo – framing images – which (following Deleuze) one is tempted to describe as \u2018a little time in the pure state\u20195<\/a><\/sup>, in short, \u2018time-image\u2019. Critics have found in Hou\u2019s filmmaking practice abundant traces of what Deleuze theorized as \u2018time-image\u2019. That is not to say Hou uses previously developed filmic-concepts or styles<\/em> (for example by Ozu), there are and can be various types of time-image, as Three Times <\/em>finely shows6<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n \u2018A time for love\u2019 focuses on time at its moment of flight. The characters are always on the move, their scant dialogs revolve around time limits \u2013 \u2018When do you get off?\u2019 , \u2018when are you due back in base?\u2019, they look at railway time tables, both letters mention \u2018time flies..\u2019. More so stylistically, the camera repeatedly focuses on the fleeting instant: lingering on Chan\u2019s cigarette smoke, rippling sea waves, rotating bicycle wheel, smoke drifting from Chan and May\u2019s meal. \u00a0Smoke, waves, smiles, glances – a series of signs referring to drift, marking a temporal plane of emanation; \u2018Evaporation\u2019 is emblematic of this time-image, evaporative surface revealing hidden surfaces, repetitive<\/em>, similar, yet not the same. Mapping lines of flight to the \u2018end\u2019 is unimportant, there is no sub-text of escape or release from everyday banality, a fact reflected by camera\u2019s utter indifference in reaching destinations \u2013 home, army barrack, new pool hall etc. Neither beginning nor end, camera follows the middle, images it creates are of the milieu, the in-between. Whenever Chang visits the pool hall he is in a hurry to leave, whereas for May pool halls are not sedentary zones external to journey but firmly internal to travel, whether pool halls come in-between journey or journey comes in-between pool halls is impossible to tell. This constant movement imparts A time for Love<\/em> with an endearing lightheartedness, in tune with cinematic-images (past and present) that celebrate the romance of nineteen sixties.<\/p>\n \u2018A time for freedom\u2019, the middle part of Three Times<\/em> is set in the year 1911, the action taking place in a \u2018Flower House\u2019 \u2013 expensive brothel – situated in Dadaocheng, Taiwan. This segment is shot in silent film format (though having occasional diegetic music and soundtrack) with dialogs displayed in intertitles. The narrative revolves around an unnamed courtesan (played by Shu Qi) and her writer cum political activist client Mr. Chang (Chang Chen). On facilitating the marriage of a younger colleague by enlisting Mr.Chang\u2019s financial support (he chips in money to compensate the release amount demanded by the brothel\u2019s proprietress from her future husband\u2019s family) the courtesan begins to long for freedom herself. But her lover is married and does not approve of the practice of concubinage. Moreover, he is busy working towards liberating Taiwan from Japanese rule. Freedom is the apt metaphor of this segment; while Mr.Chang, the reluctant lover, dreams of Taiwan\u2019s independence, the courtesan desires release from life inside a gilded cage. Tellingly, all their conversations revolve around \u2013 not love \u2013 but internal affairs of the flower brothel and wider politics of the country.<\/p>\n Like Hou\u2019s earlier film Flower\u2019s of Shanghai<\/em> (1998) this segment stunningly re-creates the interior of an elegant pleasure house, portraying with meticulous details the dresses, hairstyle, manners and gestures of its residents and customers. Yet paradoxically (it may appear at first) the film\u2019s mis en scene<\/em>s are strictly minimalist, which can perhaps be attributed to Hou\u2019s aspiration of avoiding the trap of exoticization. \u00a0Ozu\u2019s influence is conspicuous in depiction of interior spaces, especially the \u2018still life\u2019 shots that frame various objects like lamp, teacup, flowers; \u00a0but there are significant differences from the Japanese master\u2019s famed aesthetics, notably, the camera\u2019s willingness to move rather than remain fixed for long durations.<\/p>\n Parallel to superimposed captions signifying passage of chronological time, Hou uses cuts of various durations – in form of slow fade in and fade out – thereby suggesting subjective passage of time and its difference from objective time-markers. In crafting two different registers of temporality \u2013 chronological and subjective – Hou is able to bring out (cinematically) the dialectic of time inherent in his narrative: on one side, the courtesan\u2019s crystallized time of waiting inside a static \u2018interior\u2019 space; on the other, glimpses of an \u2018external\u2019 time occasioned by Mr. Chang\u2019s repeated arrivals and departures. In the end, Mr. Chang (in the aftermath of Wuchang Uprising) gets more involved with independence movement \u2013 shuffling from Japan to China – while the courtesan pines inside the brothel. In A Time for Freedom <\/em>Hou depicts with profound sensitivity the pressure of \u2018history\u2019 on characters at fringes of its grand narrative.<\/p>\n Traveling shot: A girl seated at back of a racing motorbike -her face bathed in tears – hugging the driver tightly; bike stops and the man asks if she is \u2018Okay\u2019, she only nods (in between spasms) and they move on. From the first frame of this concluding segment, titled \u2018A time for Youth\u2019, a brooding despair saturates the grey cityscape of present day Taipei. It documents, with deceptive idiosyncrasy, some moments in the life of singer Jiang (Shu Qi), her estranged girlfriend and photographer Zhen (Chang Chen). The minimally sketched plot runs like this: Jinag is having a secret affair (lying constantly to her girlfriend) with Zhen, the girlfriend suspects something and keeps on complaining – to which Jiang\u2019s response is one of cool indifference. Fed up, she (the girlfirend) threatens suicide and in all probability – towards the end of the film – throws herself down from Jiang\u2019s balcony (whether it actually occurs or not is left ambiguous).<\/p>\n In addition to bleak colours, the short\u2019s lighting is (almost) uniformly dark. This produces some hypnotic shots, especially the one where Jiang gazes – with hand held neon light – at photographs pasted on a wall inside Zhen\u2019s crammed flat; smoke drifts from her cigarette, her hair lie tussled on her shoulders from furtive lovemaking. Predictably, technologies of communication (cell phones, internet) saturate their lives, yet, their communicative function is shown to be suspect in a milieu where \u2018wo\/man is an island\u2019 seems to be the unsaid motto. Jiang\u2019s cell phone is perpetually either on silent mode or off – missed call notifications and text messages bounce on its screen incessantly – unanswered. Depicting a time from which temporality has been subtracted; quotidian objects and acts are stripped of ritualistic or playful connotations (that embellished previous shorts), rather their strictly \u2018functional\u2019 nature (even whose functionality<\/em> is suspect) betrays a mournful impoverishment of communicability.<\/p>\n Though reminiscent of Millenium Mumbo<\/em> for its dissection of lives of urban twenty-something\u2019s, A Time for Youth <\/em>has neither the romantic feel nor the nostalgic tone of the former. Here, aimlessness is not a prelude to some (possible) better understanding of oneself, rootless ness, not a lead up to search for roots. A line from Jiang\u2019s Blog sums up the predominant mood \u2013 \u2018no past, no future, just a hungry present\u2019. From the same source we learn – as a result of premature birth – she has fractured bones, a hole in her heart and epilepsy, being almost blind in her right eye. Hidden bellow the surface of a seemingly straightforward chronological narrative, Hou deftly inserts details that link up on careful viewing, to create temporal dissonance. Like this sequence: Jiang regards Zhen from close up, covering her right eye with a palm, before initiating a mute game of kissing. The shot holds no narrative significance until we come to know (later) of her near blindness. Again, when the camera assumes Jiang\u2019s viewpoint while reading the girl\u2019s typed suicide note on computer screen, the right edge of letters get blurred. This is Hou\u2019s hallmark, inserting kernels of information that may not be discernible on first viewing, but in retrospect link up to produce new understandings. This is also what makes (over-hasty) dismissal of the short\u2019s disparaging depiction of modernity – as yet another didactic take on \u2018urban alienation\u2019 – impossible. Rather, the viewer is invited to re-view the film, with more care to details.<\/p>\n Repetition changes nothing in the object repeated, but does change something in the mind which contemplates it<\/em>7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n One of the primary questions that may arise after watching Three Times<\/em> is: What effect is expected to be achieved by putting together three – ostensibly unrelated – narratives in one film? The possible answers are complex and would require scope which is beyond that of the current review. Yet, the contours of a later project (of detailed engagement with thoughts<\/em> underpinning the film) can be sketched. Hidden inside the first query rests a deeper question \u2013 What is the role of \u2018time\u2019 and temporality in this film?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps the most striking aspect of Three Times<\/em> is the observational style with which, not only gestures and expressions of characters are framed, but also, objects are captured. At times, shots consign a pseudo-autonomous existence to objects filmed\u2013 for example, the focus on gliding snooker balls (in A Time for Love<\/em>) or the repeated image of a door-side lantern being lightened (in A Time for Freedom<\/em>) \u2013 as if the geometric pattern they embody form subjects <\/em>in themselves. What is inscribed on the bodies of objects (including dresses and hairstyles) is the signature of time. This forms one of the two poles of the film\u2019s engagement with temporality<\/em>. The other pole is shaped by the camera\u2019s close attention to quotidian activities, and though their immediate narrative function may seem questionable, the form of (their) representation produces a sense of rhythm in tune with \u201creal-time behavioral processes.\u201d8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Hou repeats similar compositions inside<\/em> as well as in-between<\/em> the three shorts, and in doing so produces an index of associations. Depiction of minor repetitions \u2013 like opening and closing doors, dusting snooker table, journeys on boat (first short); washing and wiping of hands, drinking tea, dressing in front of mirror (second short); racing motorbike through free-ways (third short); letters\/e-mail\/text, bulb\/lantern\/neon light (producing series between shorts) \u2013 can be read as alluding to a radical idea of repetition<\/em> and temporality9<\/a><\/sup> (that gets manifest through repetition). The characters inside each short are devoid of memory or fore-sight (logically so) that would enable them to glimpse beyond the frame of their existence. It is the viewer who has access to all the three segments. Thus, what gets repeated is never the same (from the audience\u2019s viewpoint) since \u2018one can speak of repetition<\/em> only by virtue of the change or difference that the mind draws from repetition.\u201910<\/a><\/sup> Three times<\/em>, among other things is an attempt at mapping time\u2019s pressure – through repeating repetition<\/em> – on individual and societal body.<\/p>\n Film critics often divide Hou\u2019s oeuvre into three phases that are characterized by different approaches to filmmaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":714,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421,15],"tags":[859,858,793,861,860],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-film-reviews","category-volume-7","tag-cinema-of-hou-hsiao-hsien","tag-films-of-hou-hsiao-hsien","tag-hou-hsiao-hsien","tag-hou-hsiao-hsien-critical-analysis","tag-hou-hsiao-hsien-movies"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/714"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2<\/h2>\n
A Time for Love<\/h2>\n
![\"Three](\"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2009\/11\/18-b.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA Time for Freedom<\/h2>\n
![\"Three](\"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2009\/11\/18-d.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA Time for Youth<\/h2>\n
3<\/h2>\n
In-between Times<\/h2>\n
![\"Three](\"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2009\/11\/18-c.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u00a0Notes & References<\/h2>\n
\n
\nWeb : http:\/\/cinemaspace.berkeley.edu\/Papers\/CityOfSadness\/behind.html<\/a>.<\/li>\n
\nWeb: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/228_massacre<\/a><\/li>\n
\nWeb: http:\/\/www9.georgetown.edu\/faculty\/blattnew\/heid\/terms.htm#history<\/a><\/li>\n