2046
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Movie Reviews of 2046
Movie Review: Cinematic Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
As a young college student many years ago, I took a film class as a kind of lark and to fulfill some requirement or other. It was pretty much a waste of time. There was one camera to go around among twenty students, so we each got about a week with the thing and hardly anybody got anything done. The one good thing was that we got to see some avant-garde films. They were real eye-openers, in that film, to me, had pretty much always been a depiction of a linear story line with a beginning, middle, climax and end. The avant-garde films we watched rarely had any kind of a story line at all, but despite this the better ones were still able to elicit a satisfying emotional or intellectual response.
The first thing you have to remember when you watch 2046 is that there is not a conventional story line here. In fact, the haphazard nature of the film's scenes--past, present, future, imagined and "real"--don't even make sense in their own illogical framework. You have to know this going in because if you strain to make sense of the plot--as we have all been conditioned to do--you will miss the point. Indeed, I had to watch this a couple of times.
The film consists of a series of scenes primarily focusing on a Chinese writer named Chow. He is in Singapore, and leaves a beautiful woman behind who may or may not have loved him. He is in Hong Kong, and falls for another beautiful woman who is murdered in her hotel room. He tells the hotel-keeper that he wishes to move into this room--2046--because he is evidently trying to return to this place in his mind and his heart. Of course, he can't, literally or figuratively, so he is given the room next door. He begins an affair with a prostitute who moves into 2046 and who loves him with every fiber of her being. He uses her as a prostitute only. He falls in love with the hotel-keeper's daughter who herself is in love with a distant Japanese man her father despises. He writes a science-fiction piece--visualized in the film and entitled 2046--which is a story of the future and a train on which female androids serve one but with whom one must never fall in love, and on which he imagines himself to be Japanese.
Ehh, no, this is not a coherent storyline. The future is mixed with the past which is mixed with the present which is mixed with his story which is mixed up with his imagination. In the end, it occurs that it is entirely possible that all of these women are the same person; that they are simply some ideal of love he has concocted in his mind. Maybe not.
Visually, the film is a stunner. Every scene, every backdrop, every set-piece is carefully and meticulously orchestrated. Cigarette smoke drifting above a cluttered desk; a beautifully-clothed female form asleep on a bed; cards laid out on a green table in a dark restaurant: you could paint these scenes and hang them in an art museum. The framing device is also very artful. It is constrained and prevents us from seeing what we want to see. It is hard to comprehend. More importantly, the attention that is being paid to these details and the beauty with which they are rendered concentrates the viewer's attention: something incredibly important is going on. This feeling is reinforced by the musical score--opera and classical mostly--which drifts in and out plaintively.
The acting, from the smaller to the larger roles, is spectacular. So much is going on beyond that which is said, and beyond that which is implied. All of the actors and actresses are superb, but special mention must be paid to Ziyi Zheng, who plays the prostitute, and who burns a hole in the screen every time she appears on it. She is an un-erupted volcano of barely restrained emotion: thin, beautiful, lonely, sensual, and terribly, terribly sad.
In the end, and without perhaps realizing it, we understand that the film works as a statement on the human condition, and the clumsy, random way we try to seek happiness in it. We recognize true love after our chance for it is over, or after our previous actions have rendered it impossible. Or maybe because we failed to recognize it altogether. Or maybe because we are not Japanese, or younger, or older. Complete, unfettered happiness only exists in 2046, a room we cannot enter; a year that is in an unfathomably distant future.
That this film is an original and successful experiment with the medium, that it is so beautifully photographed and scored, that it is so perfectly acted, and that its grand themes are completely realized, make it one of the best films of the year, if not the decade.
Movie Review: Or was it all just a jumbled mess?
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Wong Kar-Wai's oeuvre hits a form of culmination - if one can say that these things come to some sort of end - in his dazzling movie 2046. This is classic Wong Kar-wai with a twist. We get the usual picture period sets (complete with detailed costuming), purposely orchestrated atmospheres or mise-en-scene, unhurried shots, the perfunctory glam cigarette smokers, soft light and to some extent film noir pretension. Teo calls Wong Kar-wai the "Auteur of Time" and 2046 is nothing short of rumination and contemplation on memory/time, sexiness/non-contact, love/loss, and incompleteness which are the hallmarks of Wong Kar-wai. Contrary to what other reviewers might allude to this movie does not surpasses (much less "transcend") "In the Mood for Love."
Wong Kar-wai, in order to be fully appreciated has to be watched many times - and this movie is no exception. Multi-layered and non-linear, 2046 seems - at least on one level the celebration of Zhang Ziyi. The movie follows the adventures of Chow Wo Man (Tony Leung), a writer of science fiction novels. Chow focuses on a future year 2046 (that according to Stephen Teo alludes to the 50 year anniversary of the turnover of Hong Kong) a "space" where memories are suspended.
The film's opening scene is reminiscent of Wong's masterpiece "Happy Together." A scene that captures the impersonal nature of cityscapes with lives intertwined but not really. The look is cross between "Blade Runner" juxtaposed with 1960s Hong Kong. Chow writes from a hotel room, and engages in relationships with a series of beautiful, complex women - and what a set of women at that. Where else can you get a powerhouse set like this together: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takuya Kimura, Zhang Ziyi, Li Gong, Faye Wong, Carina Lau, and Maggie Cheung - to name a few. The film journeys to Singapore but only in the progressively more mysterious hallways of the Chow's memory.
2046 constantly rejects the neat story summary (which is my excuse for being all over the place) with its disjointed and at time meandering plot construction. However, coupled with Wong's luxurious cinematography and astounding techniques, it is as fluid, associative, and Kafkaesque labyrinthine as memory itself - and it works. Transitioning between deftly detailed realism and sumptuous, expressionistic allegory, the movie is a deeply intoxicating experience. Even given its all over the place, oftentimes chaotic story, 2046, I have to admit, creates a (as usual) moving, emotionally stimulating, and richly gratifying experience.
In short, it all about being an "artsy-fartsy" movie! The usual suspects of soliloquy of sorts to love affairs, love spats and yes, the perfunctory heartbreaks are always a hit with me. Does Wong Kar-wai run the risk of creating his own "formula?" Who knows, eh? Until people get tired of his Kunderaesque fortuity then we will just keep trooping to his movies. It is a "no brainer" that one gets easily caught up in this film's late '60s mood and texture. It demonstrates the timeless quality of Wong Kar-wai's movies.
I can't really leave this exercise without making comment on the actors. The movie was nothing short of eye candy - even the women made comment. Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who played the lead "cool cat" is somewhat related yet somewhat removed from the character that he developed in "In the Mood for Love." Zhang Ziyi was well playing Zhang Ziyi - that mousy, come hither, persona that made her famous. Wong Kar-wai has to be recognized for bringing this powerhouse case together. The problem I had with the movie - here goes: For the average viewer, well they will walk away - much like they did with classics like "As Tears Go By" and "Days of Being Wild" will walk away saying "I just didn't get it." This is not "In the Mood for Love" and perhaps if reviewers like me stop trying too hard to make the connections we might just really be able to enjoy ourselves.
2046 is a "human relationship" movie. But there is moreover somewhere in the movie a vision - that includes androids - complete with tears postponed - that really touches us about what falling in love is like. 2046 dabbles in things like devotion, perhaps. It made me pause to think of a future where the simulacra looks like the real thing. For the complexity, the juxtaposition, the poignant look at love - I will be dragged in kicking and screaming to watch this movie again... and again. Not to mention that I was lost in the switches between the future (2046) and the past (1960s) or was it really all just one jumbled mess.
Miguel Llora
Movie Review: What is real and what is make believe?
Summary: 5 Stars
Chinese film maker Wong Kar Wai weaves a stylish web of romance and fantasy in this somewhat disjointed story about a writer whose fiction begins where his life leaves off--or vice versa. Starring Tony Leung, who played Broken Sword in Yimou Zhang's Hero (2002), as Chow Mo Wan, the writer, and Ziyi Zhang as Bai Ling, the vulnerable and gorgeous prostitute, "Two Oh Four Six" mystifies as it beguiles. Worth watching just as eye candy and to hear the music in the background, 2046 appropriately enough moves between Hong Kong and Singapore, two great Asian economic tigers, and then into the future which will be (let's face it folks) Chinese, very Chinese.
This is the first of Wong Kar Wai's films that I have seen. He reminds me a little of Yimou Zhang in that he strives for beauty in his production, in the sets, the scenes and the costumes. His interiors are darker than Zhang's and his scenes are more cosmopolitan, and unlike Zhang he does not aim to make any kind of social statement. There's a touch of American film noir in his story that focuses on Chow, the existential man who makes his living by writing newspaper articles and mass market fiction while meeting and pleasing the ladies, especially the ladies of the evening. Tony Leung's easy charm and confident manner make him a natural for the part, an deeply introspective man who likes the night life. I thought it was interesting--and maybe this is just me--that he looked a bit like Clark Gable with that thin moustache and surefooted way with women.
Ziyi Zhang is fascinating to watch, but so are the other actresses, including Li Gong who has a modest part as Su Li Zhen, prostitute turned professional gambler, and Jie Dong and Faye Wong who play different aspects of Wang Jie Wen. The sense I get from Chow's point of view is a succession of beautiful women moving before his eyes and in his memory, women he had loved but somehow never possessed. As he says, "Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too late or too soon."
One of the ideas touched upon here is that of the android lover. I have little doubt that once humans are able to create life-like androids or robots, one of the first enterprises will be to make them experts at pleasing people sexually. Another idea is that of impermanence, of time as our master, of time as fickle and malevolent with change as our enemy. Everybody wants to go to 2046 and never return because nothing ever changes in 2046. Or so it is said because nobody really knows since nobody ever returned from 2046--except Chow. We can guess he returned to find somebody in the past, to recapture something he missed.
In this way, Wong Kar Wai plays with time and human emotions. The result is a gorgeous movie that transcends cultures and leaves the viewer wondering what is real and what is make believe. Here's a question, where is that country from which no one returns? Is such a place a metaphor? And for what? Here it is from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "The undiscover'd country from whose bourn/No traveler returns..." This is from the "To be or not to be" speech, and that country is death.
Movie Review: Bits and Pieces of Love Stories from a Writer's Mind: A Wondrous Journey
Summary: 5 Stars
Kar Wai Wong is more than a film director (though he is one of the finest directors working today!): he is a visual, poetic, creative and daring artist capable of more cinematic miracles in one isolated film than most directors achieve in a lifetime. '2046' is a visually stunning, intellectually challenging, emotionally charged view of love and lust in today's kinetically dysfunctional society.
There is no one way to interpret this non-linear film and therein lies much of its rewards. The main character Chow (Tony Leung) is a writer and a libertine who has pushed his vacuous life around with his hormones and though he has had many affairs he has failed to find the illusory 'love'. He has lived in Singapore and Hong Kong, makes his living writing columns of newspapers while his novels formulate in his mind. One of his novels is called '2046', the title based on the room number in a hotel where he witnessed a bizarre incident involving a gorgeous woman, and resulted in his moving into the adjoining room 2047 where is meets the hotel manager's daughter in love with a Filipino Japanese man her father loathes. He desires this unattainable woman and fuses her with a fictional 'android' in his novel which now uses '2046' as a year or time or place where people go to find memories. He continues to encounter women for whom he desires more than surface relationships (there is a stunning lady gambler cameo who represents everything he lusts and longs for, etc) but he is never able to find his tenuous ideal: his memory is his only source of consolation.
The actors in every role include many of the finest actors available: Li Gong, Ziyi Zhang, Carina Lau, Maggie Cheung, Takuya Kimura, Chen Chang, and of course Tony Leung. But it is Kar Wai Wong, the writer, director, choreographer, colorist, visionary that makes this excursion into the interstices of the mind/imagination so overwhelmingly satisfying. Whether the viewer elects to view the story as a continyation of the director's previous films, or as reality vs memory, fiction vs imagination, sci-fi excursion, or simply a plethora of vignettes about the challenges of finding love in a world geared toward instant gratification, this is a magnificent achievement. In many ways the sound track could be turned off (though the beautiful musical score by Peer Raben and Shigeru Umebayashi with a lot of help from Maria Callas! would be missed), and the inventive cinematography and visual image manipulations by Christopher Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan and Yiu-Fai Lai such as the constant dividing of the screen into triptychs and diptychs would remain some of the most beautiful photographic images on film.
This is not an easy film to follow and it is most assuredly one that will grow in importance with repeated viewings. The comparison with Alain Resnais' 'Last Year at Marienbad' suggests its potency. But free the mind and enter into the world of '2046' for one of the most satisfying cinematic achievements of the recent past. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, January 05
Movie Review: Is true love ever reciprocated?
Summary: 5 Stars
At the core of `2046' (the sequel to the ravishing `In the Mood for Love') lies that provocative question. Can one truly love another and receive the same burgeoning love in return? One may quickly respond in the affirmative, but one must really sit back and question what their idea of love really is. When watching `2046' it almost because too obvious that no two people can love one another in the same way, thus proving the point that no true form of love is reciprocated.
Sobering, I know.
In `2046' we once again follow the character of Chow Mo-wan (thankfully played once again by Tony Leung). The film takes place a few years after the affairs recorded in `In the Mood for Love', this time focusing on Chow's affairs with a number of women. 2046 is a hotel room number. We first see this room when Chow accompanies an old acquaintance, a beautiful woman who is later stabbed by a jealous boyfriend. On a whim, Chow offers to rent out the room, only to take the room next to it, 2047. Over the next few years the room 2046 becomes somewhat of a symbol for Chow's determination to find love. Through his interactions with three women (a card shark named Black Widow, his landlord's daughter, Wang Jing-wen and a beautiful prostitute named Bai Ling) we discover many sides to Chow but also discover the root of this film.
No two loves are the same, thus no love can truly be reciprocated.
2046 thus becomes the focal point of a work of fiction Chow writes to reflect his own emotional feelings. 2046 becomes a year, a year where everything stays the same, a year where many people travel to regain lost memories. 2046 represents the love that Chow felt for Su Li-zhen (his love portrayed by Maggie Cheung in `In the Mood for Love').
While I found Tony Leung to be truly effective, I also found him to be a canvas on which his female co-stars painted their elaborate pictures of self expression. Gong Li, Faye Wong and the brilliant Ziyi Zhang were all phenomenal here. Zhang especially is all sorts of Oscar worthy here. It's a shame that the performance getting all sorts of Oscar awards buzz that year was her weaker `Memoirs of a Geisha' performance. Here she is utterly astonishing, carrying the emotional cavity of her character without every losing the flirtatious quality that made her mysteriously engaging. Wong also holds her own VERY well, creating a woman who is young and naïve yet enticing. Li is always marvelous, but what she does here with such little screen time is unforgettable (that breakdown against the wall...OMG).
While I don't think that `2046' is as strong as `In the Mood for Love', I must say that this is a perfect compliment. It takes that films burning desire and amplifies it with luscious sequences that burn themselves into our minds. Director Kar Wai Wong's stylistic approach to his work is in full effect here as he creates unforgettable imagery that perfectly compliments the emotional gravity of his story.
Pain has never looked so inviting.