Hello to the 15,000,

This coming Wednesday, July 11 at the Edwin Johnson Screening Room, 1418 5th. St., Berkeley, 7:00 we’re going to show Tsai Ming Liang’s WHAT TIME IS IT THERE. I included this film in the series because of the reaction I had watching it one late night screening at the Rafael. Would anyone else see it like I did? Or was my response purely personal? I want to find out and I think the film is well worth inviting you to see, and to ask your opinion.

I don’t want to say anything more about the film because I want you to see it without preconceptions. You don’t often get a chance to see a film this way. Most of the time you have read something about it, so you don’t go in cold. I’d recommend that if you don’t already know the film, stay ignorant. Make it an adventure. Let faith prevail.

Suffice it to say that Tsai Ming Liang, along with his compatriot Hou Hsiao-Hsien are Taiwanese filmmakers, part of what is called the Second New Wave, internationally known and deservedly so. I think of Hou Hsiao-Hsien as a sort of Cassavetes of his country. Tsai Ming Liang is harder to describe but it continues to amaze me that, in a country colonized by a mind numbing Hollywood style, mired in repetitive stories which are hardly instructive to children let alone adults, but patronized in the name of a terrible national boredom, that we have no American filmmakers of his caliber now working. I hope that whets your interest.

Hope to see you on Wednesday.

Rob �