What Time Is It There?

Aroview: Three forlorn individuals bide their time between grief, ennui and loneliness in this minimalist – and unusually talky – masterpiece from Taiwan’s Tsai Ming-liang.

Although cool and collected as an expression of urban alienation, unfolding as a meditation on stasis and human disconnection, dir. Tsai allows for some unexpected humour and warmth, introduced through characters grappling, often repeatedly and hilariously, with dead spirits, cultural disembodiment, and Jean-Pierre Leaud.

NZ International Film Festival 2002