I watched Three Times on Patrick’s suggestion. In a surfeit of director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s illusory visual enchantments - comprising captivating yet evanescent love-tinted tableaux arranged sublimely upon kaleidoscopic period settings - this trinity of tales stands out for the candor of its recurring romantic leads, who deftly weave passion, tension, anticipation - the multifaceted collage of love - into the tapestry of time.
The first sequence is saccharine. Bleached hues dominate the palette while streams of sunlight delicately perforate the languor of houses through open doors and windows, as a casual romance finds its bearings in the wake of the minor travails of a young serviceman, who renders any bitterness impotent with his subtle patience. I found the setting perfect - perhaps it is merely my idealized view of prosperous postwar East Asia, but the light-heartedness apparent in this tranquil land of opportunity and hope is the perfect backdrop to frame the fleeting moments of bliss emanating from the tentative mutual attraction the would-be lovers share.
A sedentary lifestyle could be construed as paradise; the second tale revolves around a tea-house courtesan and her regular customer. Hou seems to have pulled out all the stops in creating a conscientious replica of early twentieth century Chinese interior living space: this is definitely one of the best period settings my eyes have indulged in. Communication, in the form of polite speech, is key in this story - and this significance is further underlined when the realization that this third of the film is essentially a silent one (with a mild, somniferous classical(?) Chinese soundtrack laid in for good measure) sets in. Dialogue between the characters is conveyed to the audience through a few slides: this necessitates only snippets being revealed. In the world of the courtesan, her love affair is the most private of all - even discontent is left unvoiced until towards the end, where love triumphs over duty’s constraints. Overwhelmingly beautiful, and perspicacious: this is how you make a film about Asia without a peek through the curious but insensitive occidental lens (Memoirs Of A Geisha, I’m looking at you), though I disliked the incongruous introduction of a slight and ambiguous political slant where the issue of Taiwan’s struggle for independence from Japan was brought up.
Hou isn’t as polished a master of the exotic-pockets-of-paradise-in-postmodern-Asia’s-urban-sprawl mise en scène as, say, Wong Kar Wai, and certainly the last section of filmic trio is perhaps the most formulaic; nothing we haven’t really seen before. Nevertheless, it is an excellent formula - and Hou’s efforts in replicating the mood for love is replete with his own brand of evocative imagery, which is sometimes surreptitious, sometimes blatant, but mostly right on the mark and a joy to piece together and unfurl. This vignette is also notable for being the culmination of tension in the movie: the ebb-and-flow relationship between our familiar protagonists has finally become so bold as to explicitly adversely affect loved ones caught in the tide. While it is the nadir of moral responsibility in the film, it is also patently the most impassioned story - affection has evolved into an almost carnal desire that transcends verbal communication.
Three Times was thoroughly engaging - visually and artistically stimulating - save for a brief misalignment of elements in the second chapter, where the unholy amalgamation of traditional Chinese music, silent dialogue and warm colour tone made for a lethally soporific cocktail. Otherwise, the sheer affluence of sublimities will tease the senses, seduce intuition - you don’t have to do mental gymnastics to enjoy it. This film about transience paradoxically proves haunting in its whole: its impact is surely nowhere near fleeting for me.
On another, unrelated, note, what is, exactly, that curious processor Apple has engineered into their slick new Macbook Air?
