Three Times

Masterfully directed, though questionably plotted love story focuses on a pair of star-crossed lovers who end up falling in love throughout three different lifetimes in three different time periods. This mystical romance is presented through three self contained vignettes, which remain as true to the customs and culture of the times as is possible. The scope of this film is quite admirable, presenting a deeply sensitive observation on the true essence of love, karma, and the pressures that keep those apart from each other. However, one finds, after the passionate first segment, that the majority of the film does not quite live up to it's vast promise. Starting with it's most emotionally concrete and acutely observed segment, Hsiao-hsien Hou shows why he has earned the respect of his cinematic peers worldwide by beautifully and subtly capturing the heartfelt story. While the other two segments remain interesting, emotional connections begin to slide throughout the tones of the remaining segments. Hou's decision to film the second segment as a silent film, while breaking up the three contrasting styles nicely, ultimately plays as detached and leaves the viewer unconcerned with the characters involved. Returning to modern times, the third segment regains a little vibrancy, but also comes across as distant and underdeveloped. This would all be a lot more tedious to watch, had it not been for Hou's esteemed composition, and the natural graces of the two main leads, exemplified at it's finest unfortunately far too early in the film.

Interestingly enough, two elites of contemporary Chinese directors have presented their latest nostalgic works between 2004 and 2005. Compared to Wong Kar-wai's hybrid style and inscrutable cinematic codes in last year's 2046, Hou Hsiao Hsien's new masterpiece Three times in this year's Cannes is distinctly built on a three-episode structure and simply reminiscent of his chefs-d'oeuvre from his different golden ages.

The first episode "A time for love" is obviously associated with Hou's earlier works in 1980s. Set in Taiwan's snooker parlor in 1960s, a nostalgic aura infused with youthful vigor and adolescent impulse successfully recurred in Hou's stylish, experienced long-shots. The subtle relationship between the two main characters was getting clear with repetition of the Taiwanese old songs and western pops Smoke gets in your eyes, The Beatles' Rain and tears. This episode contains Director's real experiences and was rendered the most accessible of the three stories.

The second episode "A time for freedom" reminds me of his acclaimed classic Flower of Shanghai. Similar backgrounds, characters, chamber settings, fastidious costume designs refer to the identical tragic theme: Historically and emotionally lost. The surprise comes from the narration, which is dealt with in the form of silent movies. What struck me more is Shu Qi's weepy performance of those ancient elegies in an incomprehensible language.

The last episode "A time for youth" drew me back to the contemporary Taiwan in 2005. This episode is shockingly flooded with a variety of Generation-X's stuff such as e-mails, blog, cellar messages, trance music, digital camera, drugs, epilepsy etc., and also focused upon a group of aimless and hopeless younger animals, center of whom is a premature girl played by Shu Qi. Reminiscent of Millennium Mambo, also starring amazing Shu Qi as the key character, this story is loosely predicted on a girl whose relationship between her homosexual lover and a young male camera is morbidly and unapologetically intertwined. It's hard to conjecture why the director chose such an extraordinary story here as a representation of the contemporary society. Utilization of all kinds of most up-dated symbols has, however, proved his master touch in exactly presenting the loneliness, aimlessness and helplessness of the X-Generation living in the new century.

As the best actress in 2005's Golden Horse Award, Shu Qi's portrait of three women from different times is so convincing and laudable that she is totally competent for more difficult characters.

Three Times shows Hou Hsiao-Hsien developing further the themes of his two dazzling earlier works Flowers of Shanghai and Millennium Mambo.

It consists of three tales of love and its vicissitudes: A Time for Love, set in 1966, A Time for Freedom set in 1911, and A Time for Youth, set in the present.

As with all great art, everything lies in the style, the tempo, pacing, control of light, the compositions and framing, the control of tone, the nuances of facial expressions and bodily poses and movements, and the way all these amplify and develop the subject.

The incidents depicted are spare and in the case of the first tale almost non existent. Yet through his technique Hou right from the outset creates a mesmerizing, hypnotic, almost overwhelming spell.

This is film making on the grand scale,reminiscent of the great sixties film makers, but almost never seen these days. One wants to invoke the opulence of a Visconti , the deceptively involved and passionate realism of a Godard, the precise formulations of Eric Rohmer and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Beyond film other comparisons come to mind: Raymond Carver's supreme control of tone in elevating the barest of incidents to the stuff of high drama is perfectly matched by Hu, particularly in the first of his tales. The radiant, almost contemplative or prayer-like presentation of the women in all three tales simply reading letters or E-Mails reminds one of nothing so much as Vermeer.

In each part the style perfectly matches the themes - restraint (whether tentative and hesitant, or formalized and implacable) in the first two, and gorgeous excess in the last.

And in each section there is a succession of moments so beautiful, so "right" and so new, one really wants to shout it from the rooftops.

Whilst Three Times perhaps lacks the cumulative dramatic power of the two earlier films, it shares with them the exhilaration one gets from knowing one is viewing a great artist at the peak of his powers, the sense that he can literally do anything he wants, that no subject is beyond him.

If you haven't seen these films do yourself a favor and seek them out - they are quite possibly among the most important art of our time.

My girlfriend is always complaining that I rent gory, hateful Italian horror movies like 'Strip Naked For Your Killer' and 'Cannibal Holocaust', so I figured I'd switch it up and introduce her to the wild world of Hou. I should have stuck with 'Strip Naked...'! She complained the entire time that the film was too slow, that the characters were too vague and the whole thing, well, 'sucked'.

In my opinion, this was a graceful, magnificent film, but it is, what I like to call a 'Phantom Masterpiece' that is, a film which culminates a director's many obsessions, but doesn't really have that special punch that makes masterwork status unequivocal. I felt 'In the Mood For Love' by Wong Kar-Wai was a similar disappointment when compared to his 'true' masterpieces 'Happy Together', 'Chungking Express' and 'Fallen Angels'.

So, while you're right to expect a lot from this movie, don't expect a 'Flowers of Shanghai'.

Regardless, I found this film very fascinating, and one viewer's comment on IMDb about the film as a meta film is interesting, especially when you consider that framing shots of different actors in different times and places are virtually identical sequence to sequence. For instance, when a woman opens a letter, she's shot from exactly the same vantage point every time, regardless of the origins of the letter or herself. Its just too idiosyncratic to not be meaningful.

Also, a lot of this film is playfully back lit as characters are reduced almost to shadows for much of the action, however, as they move through the frame, light finds them and its really quite incredible.

If you are a true film fan, or a fan or Ozu, Haneke, Bresson, or Antonioni, you'll love this.

Tonight, a friend and I saw the critically acclaimed "Three Times" at a local theatre. The description that the theatre's site had posted is:

'The film features three different stories of love and memory through three time periods, 1966, 1911 and 2005. The first, "A Time for Love," hinges on the meeting of soldier boy Chen with pool hall hostess May and his subsequent search for her. The second episode, "A Time for Freedom," deals with a courtesan tending to a Mr. Chang during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. And the third episode, "A Time for Youth," centers on epileptic singer Jing who casually takes up with photographer Zhen while increasingly ignoring her female lover.'

Neither of us left the film understanding what the commotion could have been about. We both reasonably enjoyed the episode taking place in 1966 - it is sweet and innocent, and all the characters seemed happy. In the 1911 episode, the characters were all imprisoned by duty-bound roles, and happiness was not readily apparent. In the gritty modern 2005 final episode, all trace of innocence and happiness seemed to be whisked away in the detritus of the modern anonymous city.

The best scene for me was in the first part; in the sweet romance blooming between our two protagonists, Chen (played by Chen Chang) reaches his hand down slowly to clasp the hand of May (Qi Shu). But rather than enjoy many such touching scenes, I was left a bit puzzled by the dearth of interest, to me, in the rest of the film.

I had expected that Hsia-hsien Hou, cited as filming subtle scenes of beauty, would have cleverly used the three parallel histories, perhaps weaving them and interchanging them nonlinearly, or somehow relating them. All I saw was the coincidental use of two characters in love stories of three different eras. The film was slow; if it were entirely to have taken place in the 1960s, I could have described "slow" with more positive phrases, such as, perhaps, "subtly engaging" or "innocently unwinding" or maybe even "softly touching". I would give the film 5 1/2 or 6 stars out of 10.

--Dilip Barman, Durham, NC, Friday, August 4, 2006 (quote from Carolina Theatre, Durham NC website)