By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin Reporter
In some places, films are constructed like poems instead of
McDonald’s hamburgers.
Though Hollywood blockbusters today define the standards of a
successful film, a counter current has been flowing, mostly in
other countries.
“American films are made for mass consumption. My films,
however, are made for those few people who will watch it and get
something out of it. I only care to film my own feelings about
life,” said Tsai Ming Liang, Taiwanese auteur, in an
interview conducted in Mandarin Chinese via a translator.
“What Time is it There,” Liang’s new film,
opens Friday to selected theaters. Unlike most filmmakers, Liang
focuses on small, mundane activities, often making them
comedic.
“It was naturally funny. I didn’t intend it to be
that way, but I knew it would be funny. When you become an
observer, all the pain you see becomes absurd. The funniness of it
belies the sorrow underneath. There is no need to set them up. It
just occurs naturally, which is cruel since you’re laughing
at people in pain,” Liang said.
In the film, comedic moments are found in a mother (Lu Yi-Ching)
who compulsively mourns her deceased husband. To the audience, she
ridiculously eschews reason for her religious fantasies of
reincarnation. Similarly, her son (Lee Kang-Sheng) refuses to use
the bathroom at night because he is afraid of ghosts. Instead, he
must find containers in his room to relieve himself. The daily
activities of the family become little dramas in themselves instead
of scenes that serve overarching plot lines.
In fact, perhaps the most unique aspect of “Time” is
the fact that it has no plot. Instead, it concentrates on the
various emotional states of the characters.
“Unlike other filmmakers, my focus is on much smaller
things, such as a person’s facial expression or body
language. I don’t want to tell stories,” Liang said.
“Everyone reacts differently to my films. They use their
daily experiences to interpret my film on different levels. My
films don’t force the audience to think a certain way. It
only reminds them of their own lives. When you have a plot, you
have to restrict the way an audience feels.”
Continuity in “What Time” comes from mixing themes
of loneliness, death and escape together in a style completely
devoid of camera tricks, special effects or even music. A typical
shot can last up to three minutes and the only movement comes when
the camera is filming from within a moving car.
“I preserve the film’s perspective in space and time
so that it will look real. I don’t like to move the camera or
edit my shots. From the point of view of the observer, many
perspectives emerge. Each of us look at things with only one
perspective. Because of that, we use our imagination to fill up the
emptiness,” Liang said.
As if his materials weren’t already sparse enough, Liang
uses the same actors from his previous four films, who play the
same characters living in the same home.
“If you have been watching my films, it will be
interesting to you to see the changes in Hsiao Kang from two years
ago and even five years ago. All the films together present
segments of time that gradually reveals changes in the actors.
Getting different actors for each film would eliminate that
idea,” Liang said.
Since most of the film consists of silence rather than dialogue,
it may seem obvious that Liang’s film required no script.
After the general ideas crystallized in his mind, he filmed each
scene spontaneously, adapting to the environments of his shots,
many of which were places he knew growing up.
Unlike his other films, “What Time” takes place in
Paris, France, a foreign country. Using Benoit Delhomme as
cinematographer and some French actors, Liang explores the idea of
escape.
“When we encounter an obstacle, whether it’s
psychological or physical, we have the urge the escape.
That’s why I put in the girl who leaves for Paris. Paris is
only a symbol of a far-away place used for escape. It doesn’t
matter where it is. It could be London or even Los Angeles,”
Liang said.
Liang constructs an environment, rather than an ideology, within
which one must react. Seeming to build off the work of people like
John Cage, Liang turns conventional ideas about filmmaking on their
heads.
“The script does not give birth to the movie. Rather, the
movie gives birth to the script,” Liang said.
“I keep my distance from the actors, because I am not
them. I’m only an observer like the audience. I can’t
really know what they are thinking. I can only imagine what they
are thinking.”