What Time Is It There? · reception & legacy
2001 · Tsai Ming-liang
How What Time Is It There? has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Premiered in competition at Cannes in 2001 to strong reviews and landed high on critics' year-end polls; a quarter-century on it's settled in as one of Tsai Ming-liang's two or three most beloved films and a foundational text of what people now call slow cinema.
What's debated
The eternal Tsai debate: is the near-wordless, long-take stillness hypnotic and profound, or is this the film you point to when arguing 'nothing happens' arthouse has gone too far?
Its footprint
It's the great cinephile bridge film — Taipei linked to Paris, Taiwanese New Cinema linked to the French New Wave — and its clock imagery and Truffaut love make it a favourite reference point in essays and Letterboxd reviews about grief, loneliness and movie-love itself.
Where it stands
A slow-cinema canon staple and the usual gateway recommendation for anyone starting on Tsai Ming-liang.
Named by the director
Influences Tsai Ming-liang has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- The 400 Blows (1959) — Tsai openly built the film as a tribute to it — Truffaut's film appears on screen and shapes the Paris thread.
- François Truffaut — Tsai has repeatedly cited his love of Truffaut, conceiving the film as an homage and casting Truffaut's alter ego Léaud.