Three Times is a two-hour Taiwanese movie divided into three sections. Each part is set in different time periods in different locations with different characters helmed by the same two actors: Shu Qi and Chang Chen. These actors play couples with different relationship styles, but a unifying problem: the problem of connecting. I am unfamiliar with the director, but Hou Hsaio-hsien is widely regarded, and this film was the first of his films to get recognized for its greatness in the US.
I put Three Times in my queue when I found out that it majorly influenced Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, but I would caution viewers not to expect similarities in terms of narrative structure other than the fact that both movies are divided into three different time periods. Unlike Hsaio-hsien’s film, Moonlight focuses on the same characters over a relatively short period of time whereas Three Times spans substantially different eras. Jenkins clearly took important lessons from Three Times’ rigorous color composition and staging of its actors, which he surpasses in If Beale Street Could Talk, but Jenkins’ stories are much more satisfying and balanced in their focus on the inherent joys and tragedies of love between two people whom the world is constantly trying to tear apart individually and as a couple.
Three Times is probably better suited to the big screen in order to appreciate the visual beauty of the film. On a small screen at home, it is more difficult to focus and appreciate those details. I felt a lot of the significance of the time periods and locations got lost in translation and probably held more meaning to Taiwanese viewers who are familiar with the history of each era and the character of those locations. I did not know the unspoken rules governing the first two parts of the film though it was easier to surmise in the second part after awhile. For example, I want to know why pool hall hostesses move around so much?
I appreciated Three Times, but I did not enjoy it. It is a romantic drama and knowing that would have been enough for it never to land in my queue if it were not for the Jenkins connection. Jenkins’ movies focus on romantic love, but it is not the point. I would suggest that this movie depicts three different kinds of love. I’m an unfeeling philistine when it comes to this genre so my analysis may be completely wrong because it differs from how Roger Ebert saw the film, and he adored it.
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Three Times’ three parts have different titles: A Time for Love set in Kaohsiung in 1966; A Time for Freedom set in Dadaocheng in 1911 and A Time for Youth set in Taipei in 2005. Ebert believed each respective part focused on unfulfilled, mercenary and meaningless love. The perfect love should be a balance of the body-physical attraction, the mind-finding the other person as intellectually stimulating as they are physically, and the soul-an unspoken connection that would exist if two people could not move or talk, but would subsist in silently being next to each other. Most relationships in the real world fall more into at least one of these categories, two if you are fortunate, but not all three, and falling disproportionately more into one category usually leads to the end of the relationship.
Three Times uses written communication in each section to symbolize the connection between the couple. The amount of time that it takes for the writer’s words to take root is not necessarily related to the effect that those words have on the reader. The actual physical proximity of the couple to each other is also important, but does not necessarily correlate to a deeper connection, and this movie plays with that concept in a way that heightens the tension of the story because it is a counterintuitive concept.
The first part of Three Times represents ideal, pure and innocent love similar in its efforts to the Romance of the Rose, courtly love. It lasts 42 minutes. A Time for Love is amusing because they are both in periods of transition, literally two ships passing, and he throws out a line directed at one fish, but a different fish happily accepts the hook. He joyfully reciprocates the affection of his unintended target. It is the meaning behind the message that carries the weight. He is looking for someone, any woman, to answer his call so even though he addresses the letter to a specific woman, it is the equivalent of a message in a bottle. Then a different woman receives his message and responds knowing that she was not the target, but he is happy with the result. The real goal is giving and accepting the idea of love.
The connection is so strong that it electrifies the air around them, and in the opening scenes, Hsaio-hsien films them as if they are the only ones in the room, but as the scene unfolds, he widens the camera’s focus to reveal that they are actually in a crowded room. She is at work, and he is a customer. Their work briefly puts them together, but also pulls them apart though they are compelled to overcome these practical obstacles. It is a meeting of two souls in a temporal world, but this section ends once they connect. Practically it seems as if circumstances wants to keep them apart, and as an ignorant American, I’d love to know why he had to be in the army-is there an ongoing conflict or just part of routine service required at a certain age? I’d like to imagine that they can sustain this connection, but maybe this moment is all that they have. It is the most beautiful part of the movie.
The second part of Three Times depicts selfish/unrequited love and is 39 minutes. We are watching two people with huge power differentials engage in a commercial transaction and trying to pretend that it is not, but fail. This section is shot like a silent film, and the only time the viewer hears sound is when she sings, which makes the viewer empathize with her more. There are huge lags of time before his letters reach her, and the communication is one-sided. She can only talk to him if he is in the room with her. He dominates and sets the rules of the conversation thus the relationship. We hear her even as he refuses to. She is a slave, a courtesan, who would like to believe that her customer’s idealistic notions of love and freedom and financial generosity actions apply to her, but they don’t, which makes him awkward and aware of his hypocrisy then eventually leads to the end of their time together when they can no longer pretend that their time together matters and is reciprocal. She is his mirror in which he sees himself as better than he is so when he lets her down, she can’t fulfill that function, and he abandons her to slavery while patting himself on the back for all the good things that he has done. We know that he is there for sex, but she is also there to meet his mental needs with her talent and intellect, which he apparently does not get from his wife. In the end, she sees herself in a ten-year old girl being trained to replace a more fortunate, but younger courtesan who was supposed to replace her. She is trapped. This section is the saddest part of the movie, and I could not stand that dude. Work brought them together, but they were never really together. She saw what he wanted her to see, but it was a false reflection, and he never wanted to see her.
The third part of Three Times falls entirely into erotic or obsessive love and is the longest section at 45 minutes. Even though communication has the potential to be instantaneous through the use of cell phones, texting and emails, it can only be that way if the receiver wants it to be, i.e. is willing to read the message as soon as it is received, acknowledge that it was read and respond soon thereafter or being willing to actually answer the phone when it rings. If the receiver does not want to do that, it does not have to be blamed on the person or the relationship, but technology-losing power, a poor connection. This section is the most explicitly sexual and compulsively physical. Even when the lovers aren’t together, they are consuming their other half’s work. He is a photographer, and she is a singer, but he has a day job in a restaurant, and she may be supported by her parents and or her other lover, a woman. She is the user in this section, but he does not get the short end of the stick so it works out for them for now. She is also a Camille like figure mysteriously ill so it adds another layer of urgency to the compulsion.
Ebert calls him a client like the other two sections, but I don’t see it. As a singer, she can exist without him. She does not need him though she may enjoy how he sees her. He can always choose to turn his lens to another person. They are creative complements of the other. Their professions actually help them to be together instead of trying to pull them apart, but because their work and words can be widely consumed by anyone, unlike the first section, it creates confusion when the wrong recipient receives the signal, and they are not interested, but also are unwilling to admit it. These lovers literally succeed in being together, but they are less satisfying for viewers than their earlier counterparts because they are more inscrutable and less likeable. They act, but don’t seem to reflect. Their selfishness serves the relationship so it is less aggravating than the second part, but it also does not feel sustainable or rooted in a potential to grow into something bigger like the first part. It isn’t exactly a great way to end the movie though it can be kind of seen as a happy ending since they get to stay together.
Three Times seems like a great artistic and philosophical exercise, but it did not speak to me on any other level. The deliberate pacing felt slow to me, and I don’t think that I was able to breach the cultural divide. If you don’t like subtitles, unless you’re really into romantic movies, you should probably skip this movie. If you feel compelled to watch it because of its rightful visual reputation as a great work, I think that just watching the first part will suffice, but the second part may be worth a further investment of your time even if it does not really adhere to the silent film standards of the actual time period, but the director’s idea of silent film.