Three Times

Hou Hsiao-Hsien assembles three vignettes of the same two actors in the Taiwan of 1966, 1911, and 2005. The first is sweet and light, scored to “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and other period ballads: a conscript meets a pretty pool hall attendent, writes her letters, but when he returns on leave she has moved, and he has to track her through several towns till they meet again, have dinner, and as they stand at a bus stop, their hands touch and then clasp. That episode is almost wordless, and the second is silent, in keeping with its era, with musical acccompaniment and dialogue on intertitles, set in a sumptuously visualized brothel, where a courtesan hopes to be saved by a young journalist who visits periodically but is preoccupied with freeing Taiwan from Japanese occupation -- when she gets a letter from him oh so hopefully, it only contains impersonal political news. Modern day Taipei is quite a jolt -- all motorscooters, neon, electronics. The couple, this time an epileptic, bisexual pop singer and a hunky photographer, communicate mostly through text messaging and sex, with no slow build to a quiet moment of real feeling, so the story is less satisfying in itself, though it does follow through the parallels between stories that give the whole weight. Hou is a little-seen critical darling, worth seeing but not a must-see, and this seems to be a representative anthology. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-80.)