When I first watched it, I felt a strong Ozu flavor, a lot of fixed shots, and a stage-like layout. Probably because of this fixed-camera relationship, I always feel that I am peeping at the lives of another group of people from a window, and unknowingly entered their world.
In fact, in the end, I didn't fully understand what the movie was talking about. If the story that happened in Taipei was about the memory of my father who passed away, the Paris part confuses me. The intersection between the two is only at the beginning, when the girl buys Xiaokang's watch, and at the end, the real and imaginary father picks up the girl's suitcase.
Maybe the world is always full of that kind of plausible connection. Xiaokang should not keep setting his watch to Paris time because he fell in love with that girl. That performance is a feeling of missing, maybe the girl, maybe the father. He is unwilling to reveal his thoughts about his father, which is reflected in his dissatisfaction with his mother. Always tell his mother that his father has passed away, and the only violent conflict in the whole film is with his mother.
"What time are you over there?" Undoubtedly, it conveys a feeling of nostalgia, for Paris, for the father in another world. The whole movie is immersed in a lonely atmosphere, Xiaokang has no friends and sets up a watch stand on the flyover. The mother has no friends, and the only connection with the son is because of the husband, "he" is the "son" of the "husband". That girl in Paris is also lonely, because of language or something.
End credits, this film is dedicated to the director's father and Xiaokang's father... Dedicated to them, because this film expresses thoughts. I like this film very, very much, I like the kind of slow, light story told.
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