REVIEW: Wong Kar Wai's 2046

I am obliterated today. Not completely, but really close. I will admit to have been in a creative funk as of late. But my Jedi master has brought me back. Amy and I went to the Angelika yesterday and saw Wong Kar Wai’s new movie 2046. I first caught the Wong Kar wai train in college, when I would haunt the local Asian video stores in Arlington looking for some inspiration. I found this movie called Chungking Express and was captivated. Next were Days of Being Wild, As Tears Go By, Ashes of Time, and then the Chungking follow-up Fallen Angels. My good friend and fellow filmmaker Shawn Kelly and I were addicts. We studied him like a textbook, aimlessly trying to imitate him in our own short films with little success. Time passed and a few new Kar wai films would come out. In 2001, In the Mood for Love came out and at first it kind of scared me. It was not anything at all like the previous fast paced stuff he had produced in the past. It was more mature and focused. Instead of fast it dripped slowly over you like looking at a painting in a gallery. And after several viewings I grew to appreciate this new style more and more. Amy even had the poster for it framed for me in this awesome brown frame.

Yesterday at 4:45 I was sucked into the universe yet again with his latest opus, 2046. This is a sequel to In the Mood For Love which follows the Tony Leung character 3 or 4 years after his affair with Maggie Cheung. He is a sci-fi writer now writing a novel called 2046 about a train in the future that you board if you are looking for past memories. The movie shifts through time and space beautifully between the reality of the 60’s and Leung’s characters in a fictional 2046. He has become a womanizer, a man of many lovers but no one love. In his heart he still pines for Maggie from In the Mood For Love and cannot commit to anyone he encounters. Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong are his main interests, while Gong Li and Carina Lau come into play much later. The movie also serves a sequel of sorts to Days of Being Wild too. The character of LuLu that Carina Lau plays is from Days. In watching it you also get the feeling that by pairing Faye Wong and Tony Leung together again, it is also a kind of Chungking Express reunion too. In fact one shot of Fay Wong looking into the glass says volumes about that relationship. This film really serves as a kind of wrapup of all his previous movies. A kind of 'thank you' to his own characters.

I can’t really put into words what this movie does to me. It inspires for sure as a filmmaker. As a lover of photography it moves me. As a storyteller it challenges me. It’s not a three-act structure. It’s a stew of interplay between desperate characters set against a backdrop of dirty yet glorious desperation. Christopher Doyle’s photography here is as exquisite as anything the Aussie has ever put on celluloid. As much as I love the digital revolution in filmmaking, you cannot make this film on HD. I defy Rodriguez or Lucas to make any statement otherwise. This is a film.

I’ve had the DVD for this film for half a year and yet I held out for a theatrical showing because of my respect for Wong Kar wai. I was not disappointed. Is this the greatest story ever told? No absolutely not. But that’s not what this about. This is about losing yourself in a sea of emotion and imagery. I thought it should have ended about 20 minutes earlier, where it could have ended on a touching somber note, but it kept rolling. Other than that about halfway into this movie I was lost in it. Unable to get out. It took me in. This was something I needed inside creatively. It fed me, it owned me for 2 hours. Time is what Wong Kar wai makes movies about. And for those 2 hours time was insignificant to me. I could have stayed on that train for days not knowing when I was coming back or even caring. I liken kar wai to filmmakers like Peter Greenaway. They have evolved film to an art form. Filmmaking as an art form has not evolved much since its inception other than technically. Wong Kar Wai shows you what can be done with this art form, and let us not forget that that is what it is.