Eros through the eras

Those familiar with the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's work will recognise the master film-maker summing up his themes with consummate if sometimes minimalist artistry in this time-travelling trilogy.

Three Times presents the same romantic couple (Shu Qi and Chang Chen) in each episode. The first, A Time for Love, takes place in the Sixties and is practically wordless. Shu plays a pool hall hostess, Chang an army recruit who falls for her, disappears into the military and then tries to find her again.

The second, A Time for Freedom, goes back 45 years to a brothel in Japanese-occupied Taiwan where he is a writer and she a courtesan yearning to be free. But his misplaced idealism leaves her trapped. It's all played out in silence, with the dialogue displayed in intertitles. The last episode, A Time for Youth, is set in the modern era and has the lovers battling each other and an ambisexual punk chanteuse who also loves the aimless Shu. It is chaotic and has a postmodern contrivance about it.

Three Times is superbly shot, and is partly about the strange history of Taiwan, partly about how nothing much changes as far as emotions are concerned. It's an art film, but so fluidly made that those who admire Hou's work may well fall in love with it.

Three Times
Cert: 12A