Taiwan’s non-linear time in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s THREE TIMES
First DistributorsImagine that you want to be free, but the political situation in your country hinders your independence. Or that you’re now enfranchised, but still unable to live freely due to your internal conflicts. By varying the extent of freedom of his characters, Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien imposes these contrasts in his Three Times – a feature embodying three short films, three love stories between a woman (Shu Qi) and a man (Chang Chen), presented in three different years – A Time for Love in 1966, A Time for Freedom in 1911, and A Time for Youth in 2005. So, buckle up! The Taiwanese time travel begins. Beware some political turbulence!
A Time for Freedom - 1911
The story takes place sixteen years after the signing of the “Treaty of Shimonoseki” which obliged China to cede Taiwan to Japan. As Qi and Chen’s characters discuss in the film, the Mainland’s unstable political situation diminishes the probability of a forthcoming unity. Therefore, this “Time” is all but “freedom”.
Qi is a prostitute, and Chen – a starry-eyed political writer – is a regular client of hers. After the brothel’s madame dragoons Qi to “stay longer”, Qi – willing to escape – subtly implores Chen to become his concubine, but she is also as subtly denied by him. Thereafter, Chen sends her a letter saying that he has voyaged to Shanghai, planning to contribute to the Mainland’s social politics. Because the Japanese occupation continued up until 1945, this might mean that Qi – left only with her memory of Chen – will never see him again.
Having said that, A Time for Freedom communicates an anti-modern message – ”anti-modern” meaning that the events in a given timeline are stagnant, monotonous and can’t be defined by a linear historical progression. As the film conveys with Qi’s leaving pregnant colleague and the new-coming 10-year-old trainee who will replace the former, a whole life cycle appears before Qi’s eyes without her being part of it. This illuminates the coexistence of “modern” and “anti-modern” time. The “others” experience dynamic processes, such as the ever-changing life cycle and Chen’s purposeful, libertarian journey, but Qi observes stationarily – like a spectator in the cinema who’s outside the event, disconnected from reality. This immobility also refers to the nascence of Taiwan cinema which, at that time, mainly embodied imports from Japan, Hollywood, Europe and China. The Taiwanese spectators could just observe how the “others” move around their screen.
In a chain of repetitious scenes, one hears a traditional Chinese song; Qi is singing the song in front of Chen and his elite equals. She’s backgrounded, completely disregarded, and moulded into a regaling slave, which juxtaposes the upper class experiencing progressive time with the marginalised people living in the sub-reality where life is set at −273.15°C. Qi’s stagnancy illuminates a cycle of continuous destruction owing to the impossibility of progress: she desires to escape but when she attempts that, the off-screen political and Chen’s on-screen decisions make her sit back on her seat. This eternalised “pulling-back” flattens her future and before, now, and after practically become the same thing. Therefore, Qi can never escape and remains embalmed in eternal submissiveness.
A Time for Love – 1966
Around two decades prior to 1966, another period of “freedom” occurred on the island. Taiwan was no longer a Japanese colony and the Kuomintang (KMT) took charge. Because their regime brought hyperinflation, the KMT preferred to import Mandarin films than fund Taiwanese productions – which was also part of the party’s agenda to “Chinasise” the Taiwanese. Still, most of the films screened in Taiwan were Hollywood productions whose hegemony was bolstered by the billion-dollar US aids, which neutralised the hyperinflation and catalysed the island’s Americanisation. In short, A Time for Love depicts a historical period where the locals experienced two simultaneous colonisations.
Qi works as a pool-hall hostess and Chen is a member of her regular clientele. Their actions highlight the motif of repetitiveness. For example, Qi places the pool balls at their starting position and wipes the board to write the new result down repeatedly. This, again, connotes a cycle of stagnancy since Qi can arrange pool balls her whole life without an occurring change. With another repetition, the short film engenders the main conflict: Will Chen find his love interest before returning to the army? Chen develops feelings for the pool-hall hostess Haruko, then goes to the army, then comes back and the new hostess – Qi – tells him that Haruko is already gone. In a while, Chen starts carrying a torch for Qi. Then he goes to the army, comes back and learns that Qi is gone. The pool-hall’s manager gives him Qi’s work address – a pool-hall in another city. Chen begins a fruitless journey to find Qi. Eventually, her mother gives him Qi’s work address – a pool-hall in another city, where Chen eventually finds her. On the other hand, Qi’s off-screen journey represents another repetition: her free spirit takes her to new places but wherever she goes, she can’t escape from her monotonous job. In the end, Qi and Chen wait for the bus and hold hands, which encapsulates the repetition that all the Qi’s and Chen’s will have made.
With all the aforementioned repetitions, A Time for Love parodies the Hollywood story format by embedding the “boy meets girl” Hollywood cliché. As if in a mythological narrative, Chen needs to traverse the whole island to find Qi and win her heart. Nonetheless, in Hollywood terms this would necessitate close-ups to accentuate the characters’ affection, but here, Hou employs a mid-shot style, which establishes a distance between audience and characters. This underscores the feeling of the setting and the historical period; not only does the audience observe the charming relationship between Qi and Chen, but also its place in a dubious historical context – encircled by political oppression and foreign influence – when no “grounds” had been provided for the thorough love experience.
Initially, Qi seems like the subservient woman who will stay at the first pool-hall to patiently wait for Chen to return from the army. However, Qi emerges as a feminist who doesn’t await the “knight in shining armour” and begins a journey to “find herself”. Hence, the “hands-holding” with Chen is nothing more than a parody of a banality. It’s just a negligible moment in Qi’s life who will continue to be en route in perpetuity despite always ending up in just another pool-hall. A Time for Love translates a Hollywood-like love story in the language of the colonised ingraining the political ambiguity in Qi, who correspondingly embodies both traditional and modern values.
A Time for Youth - 2005
Contrasting the quiet life in A Time for Freedom, this short film begins with the revving sounds of a motorcycle, set against the backdrop by modern Taipei. Following the massive US aids in the 50s and 60s, Taiwan’s economic and cultural state gradually became Westernised. According to some critics of capitalism, the Western technological developments represent the alienation from nature and the efforts to control it while the estranged citizens lack control of their lives. In comparison, the previous two “Times” illustrate the influence of political regime, whereas A Time for Youth illuminates the consequences of Taiwan’s Westernisation whereafter one is so estranged from the others that they can’t figure out how to love.
Qi is a singer and Chen is her photographer. Both of them are involved in a romantic relationship with their respective girlfriends, but they start cheating on them with each other. After their partners discover the infidelity, Chen’s girlfriend leaves him and Qi’s girlfriend commits suicide. Impassive and left by themselves, Chen drives Qi on his motorcycle in front of Taipei’s skyscrapers. In the end, during the ride, they join other motorcyclists on a driveway and become indistinguishable. The sight of capitalised Taipei highlights that their love can’t “stand out” owing to the young couple’s inability to mould their affection into a functional source of love. As the late Roger Ebert suggests, the couple fails to be happy because their life is so penetrated by cell phones, emails, and computers that “they can barely deal with each other at all”. Not that the West is inherently “bad”, but rather because of Taiwan’s “unripeness” for such a drastic cultural development.
The emergency card hanging around Qi’s neck depicts that she suffers from epilepsy, has been born prematurely and has a hole in the heart. A disease connected to brain malfunctions, epilepsy is still a colossal issue for people in developing countries, whereby the film defines Taiwan’s shift to Westernisation as an extremely radical process for a still developing country. “Developing” not only economically but also regarding national consciousness, which after periods of excessive oppression needs to take a breath before being “functionally” colonised. Right before Qi has sex with Chen, she closes her left eye to observe him with her almost blind right eye. The perpetual “blindness” toward love and the fact that apart from her current girlfriend’s suicide, Qi’s ex-girlfriend also killed herself, again connotes the repetitive cycle of anti-modernity even when the Taiwanese are enfranchised. Qi is already free. She goes out, meets people and writes songs whenever she wants; however, her chaotic movements ultimately position her on the same track as in the other “Times”. Hence, the Westernisation was born prematurely and has left the Taiwanese with a hole in the heart whereupon the Qi’s and the Chen’s lack the senses to optimise their affection.
Following the chronological order, Freedom compares Qi’s immobility and non-freedom to the dynamic movements of the “others”, Love illustrates Qi as a bearer of both traditional and modern values constructing her semi-freedom, and Youth underscores Qi’s dynamic but chaotic movements revealing her total freedom. Therefore, no matter the extent of freedom, Qi can never fully experience her love and youth. That being said, neither the Japanese occupation nor the KMT’s despotism, combined with the US colonialism, nor the recent Westernisation supply Taiwan with a real sense of linearly progressing time, free of monotony.