War and family: revenge, absurdity and melancholy drive collection of new films. . - At The Movies - The Count of Monte Cristo - The Son's Room - No Man's Land - What Time Is It There? - movie review

National Catholic Reporter, March 1, 2002 by Joseph Cunneen

Ciki (Branko Djuric) is a Bosnian soldier whose patrol members are all but wiped out when they get lost in the fog. An explosion sends him flying into a trench in a noman's-land between Serb and Bosnian positions. His friend Cera (Filip Sovagovic)S is alive, but the Serbs have placed a bouncer mine underneath him as an ambush, so he cannot be moved. Ciki is holding a Serb captive, a greenhorn named Nino (Rene Bitorajac) whom he has injured. Ciki and Nino's arguments about who started the war suggest theater of the absurd, especially when it develops that both know Sanja, a pretty young woman from Nino's village. Power relations between them shift after Nino acquires a gun while Ciki is caring for Cera, but they are equally afraid of being shot at by both sides. The logical if bizarre solution to their plight leads them to strip to their shorts and face their respective enemies, waving a white flag of surrender.

This maneuver confuses both the Serbian and Bosnian commands, who call in the U.N. peacekeeping forces to investigate. The latter are waylaid by Jane, an English TV reporter looking for a story. After it becomes clear that an expert is needed to deactivate the mine beneath Cera, her threat of publicity goads the callous U.N. Gen. Soft to drive up to the front lines with his girl friend. The German mine expert is no help. Finally, the general gets the cameras turned off and everyone out of the area. Everyone but poor Cera, who is still lying on his back with a mine under him as the movie ends, ironically, with a lullaby. Amazingly, Tanovic manages to make much of this depressing material funny, and to show us that despite the war Bosnia remains green and beautiful.

Add Tsai Ming-Liang's name to your list of Asian directors worth following. His What Time Is It There? manages to be all at once a study in loneliness, a meditation on time, and an examination of family dysfunction.

At the outset, an exhausted father smokes a cigarette and dies without a word being spoken, leaving his son, Hsiao Kang (Lee Kang-Sheng), with a mother (Lu YiChing) who actively awaits her husband's reincarnation. Hsiao Kang sells watches on the streets of Taipei, where a lovely customer (Chen Shiang-Chyi) insists on buying the dual-time wristwatch he is wearing because she is about to go to Paris. She even brings him a cake as part of the purchase price. After she leaves, there are several fine comic bits showing Hsiao Kang changing the hour hand of various clocks around the city to Paris time.

Tsai knows how to make good use of a quiet moment and never moves his camera, which somehow magnifies our sense of desire and awareness that the characters are failing to communicate with each other. The funniest sequence is one in which the mother ladles a duck and rice dinner onto her husband's plate as the bewildered Hsiao Kang continues eating. He doesn't understand why his dead father gets better meals than he does. Less successful are the scenes showing Chen's adventures in Paris. I couldn't believe she would be left lonely there. "What Time Is It There?" should appeal to philosophers and poets, but despite its frequent deadpan hilarity, the overall experience is melancholy.