A certain slant of light: James Quandt on the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien.(Critical Essay)

Side lit and glimmering, the billiard balls in the opening sequences of Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien's new film, Three Times, look more like objets d'art, so aestheticized is the atmosphere in which they exist--a hushed, radiant world of robin's-egg shantung, green baize, and crisp muslin.

As if observing Emily Dickinson's instruction that "the Truth must dazzle gradually," the film hangs fire, exquisitely, in that manner familiar to those who know their Hou: time suspended, natural light spilling into domestic space, a sense of reverie and yearning quietly ...

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