Following the death of his father, nothing seems to be right in Hsiao-Kang's (Kang-Sheng) life. His mother's lost the plot - convinced that the reincarnated spirit of her dead husband is trying to return to the house - and Hsiao-Kang himself has started to find that even his simple job hawking watches on the streets of Taipei has become too much effort for him.

After selling a timepiece to Shiang-Chyi (Shiang-Chyi) Hsiao-Kang begins to obsess about the young woman. The only problem is she's leaving for Paris. So, in an attempt to keep in touch with her, Hsiao-Kang sets all the clocks he can find to Parisian time.

A startlingly minimalist film, "What Time is it There?" offers a slyly comic take on bereavement and loss. Following Hsiao-Kang and his mother in Taiwan and Shaing-Chyi in Paris. as she spends a lonely holiday on her own, writer-director Tsai Ming-Liang enlivens this slow-paced drama with some blackly comic visuals that capture the sense of absurdity and abject isolation that's overcome these characters.

Whether watching Hsiao-Kang resetting Taipei's clocks, testing the new range of unbreakable watches he's been given, or feeding a rogue cockroach (which may or may not be the reincarnated spirit of his father) to the fish, "What Time is it There?" undercuts its overwhelming sense of grief with an awareness that life really does go on.

Shot without a musical score and in a series of languid takes the film wears its arthouse credentials on its sleeve (there's even a cameo from Jean-Pierre Leaud, last seen in "The Pornographer", as a typically laid-back Parisian flirt). There's no denying that Ming-Liang's willingness to let scenes unfold at their own snail-like pace is at times infuriating, but if you've the patience, there are great rewards here.

Mandarin, Taiwanese, and French with English subtitles.