2046

I read different takes on 2046 and its connection to its predecessor by writer/director Wong Kar-Wai, In the Mood for Love. Some said you had to see it before 2046, although the general consensus was that the unusual romanticism and little details in both films, and actors like Tony Leung and Maggie Chung, made the only real connection(s) (Wong himself has said ironically to see 2046 before In the Mood for Love). It seems, after seeing the film, that he was correct; I had seen half of In the Mood for Love a while back, and I did get an idea of what I might expect, but the fact is is that 2046 really does work fine as a film on its own terms. It's a story that at first seems like it will be style over substance, and at times it is, but the substance is usually very intriguing, and keeps attention. It isn't a perfect film, and towards the end it starts to lag, but such criticisms are made up for by the attributes.

We learn from the narrator and lead character, Chow (Leung), that there is a place, if not a time, called 2046, where people don't leave unless they fall in love. But, for the bulk of the film, the film is not set in any kind of futuristic setting that might be assumed on the outset of going into the film. It's set in late 60's Hong Kong, where Chow writes lurid fantasy stories. He takes room 2046 after seeing a woman, Su (Li Gong), in the room. He feels that this place is where he, like others, can go to "lose memories" ("All memories are traces of tears", a title-card reads), which spurs him on the start writing a sci-fi novel with the room's title.

During his stay, he meets two women that effect him: an abused girl, at first acting aloof, Lulu/Mimi (Carina Lau), leaves and the later comes back in the film as a kind of writing assistant for Chow. The more significant woman, however, is in the form of call-girl Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi, a woman so gorgeous it borders on the unreal), who like the others takes room 2047, and becomes Chow's "drinking buddy". But this soon turns to playfulness, to a side affair. Although there is much else that goes on in the film, this has some of the best material, with wonderful dialog and style giving room for perhaps th best performance I've seen from Ziyi yet.

This is not all to the film, though it could've been and been as successful. The women in Wong's films, like with Hitchcock or even Antonioni or Godard (all directors he was obviously inspired by for his own original stance), are crucial to how it turns out. These women express everything Wong desires, abandons, represses, flirts, and acts cool with. They spur on almost every one of his creative pieces (he gives a short story of 2047 to one, who wonders why the ending is so sad, to which he cannot create a happy one), and all of the things he'd rather not forget. Without the strong performances from them all, in particular Ziyi, Lau and Cheung, the drama just wouldn't be there, and certainly the style giving much weight to the film would become over-cooked and pretentious.

The style, of which, was something I took various notes of while I watched, scribbling bits, elements, colors and shots that caught my eyes: the greens in the halls, the brightness of outside on the porch, the black and white scene in the cab (one of my favorites), and of course the futuristic visualization scenes of Chow's own 2046. What's curious about the real sci-fi type scenes is that they make little sense aside from the central point- finding real love and the exile following- but the atmosphere, use of different colors and shots and film speeds (Christopher Doyle, a DP on most of Wong's films, does beautiful work all around) is unique, and basically saves a dramatically empty sequence.

There is also the question of slow-motion, which is used to much more effect than in the previous Wong films I've seen, and if it is over-used. It becomes a distraction only towards the end, when one wishes things were not TOO romanticized, but many times it is affecting, and tries to past the melodrama in some of the (above average) writing. Overall, Wong Kar-Wai displays without a shadow of doubt with 2046 that he is a master of compositions, of moods, and of creating characters that are true to themselves, who feel and love but can't seem to reach for it. But this doesn't make it an 'empty' film. If a scene missteps or something gets irksome with the style, it comes back around at the next minutes.

The title of the film, "2046," refers both to a time in the future and to a hotel room in the past. Chow Mo Wan is a writer living in Hong Kong in the mid to late 1960's. The hotel room he rents is right next door to Room 2046, whose various residents, all beautiful but troubled women, he observes and interacts with and puts into his fiction, a sci-fi story entitled "2046," about a futuristic world in which people desperate for love and happiness journey to an unspecified place called 2046 where, we are told, love remains eternal and nothing ever changes. Chow's literary work also reflects much of what he himself feels about women, love and relationships. It's not always easy following the time shifts and parallel stories upon which this multi-level narrative is constructed, but "2046" is a mesmerizing film for anyone willing and open enough to give himself over to the experience.

At the start, the film feels episodic and disjointed, as writer/director Kar Wai Wong reveals in gradual stages the complex story he is telling. We can tell that this is a movie that will require our full and undivided attention if we hope to enter into the minds of the filmmakers and make any real sense at all out of it. But after some initial confusion, most of the early ambiguity begins to fade away as the major themes and characters come to the fore. Chow is a man who has clearly lost the love of his life and who has since been trying to come to terms with that fact in his later dealings with women. He has made a decision - whether conscious or unconscious we are never really sure - to keep women at arm's length, being willing to bed or help them but not allowing himself to enter into any permanent or meaningful relationships with them. Instead, he uses his writing to express those yearnings for true companionship that he cannot allow himself to act upon in real life.

Unlike many Chinese films, which enact their tales against expansive landscapes bathed in glorious sunlight and vibrant colors, "2046" is set in a claustrophobic world of dingy rooms and darkened hallways, with the camera almost never journeying outdoors or even pulling very far back from the actors in the frame. The effect of this is to plunge us fully into the world and minds of the characters, particularly that of Chow, whose thoughts and musings become the canvas on which the story is painted. Tony Leung Chiu Wai gives a subtle, masterful performance as do the various actresses who play the women in his life. It is his affair with Bai Ling, a beautiful prostitute who wants more out of their relationship than Chow is willing to give, that leaves the greatest mark on our heart.

There are times when the movie seems almost too fancy and showy for its own good, when the simplicity of the theme gets buried under the complexity and artiness of the filmmaker's style. But this is, for the most part, a challenging and stimulating work that moves us even when we don't fully understand it.

2046 was directed by Kar Wai Wong, who also directed In the Mood for Love. This film is also lyrical, deliberately paced, and very romantic.

Without giving too much away, the film takes place in Hong Kong and Singapore in the 60's. The main character, Chow, is a writer and womanizer. Part of the story takes place in his work, a science fiction tale called 2046.

The story is told out of sequence, with past and present jumbled. In a clever use of irony, we gradually understand that the future is being used to tell the past. Some scenes are presented early, in a way that is confusing until the context is presented later.

There are 3 female characters who are in his life, and the story is segmented accordingly.

The cinematography is beautiful. Interestingly, Wong uses 3 colors nearly exclusively: Blood red, sea green, and yellow. Sometimes he will use light to make those colors stand out, other times it is the objects themselves which are in that color.

I would characterize the story as one of love and loss. There is one poignant scene where, after he realizes what has been happening, he states that timing is crucial in love.

The film is well acted, the characters are understandable if not necessarily ones we can identify with, and the story gradually allows itself to be revealed, a peek here and a peek there, until all the pieces fall into place.

Turn off the lights, cuddle up with a glass of wine, and see this one. Well worth it.

Review: 2046 (2004) By Ken Lee

Several years in the making and highly anticipated, _2046_ (2004) should pacify director Wong Kar Wai's fans, at least, for its end-of-an-era feel and look. At its core, this is a decidedly (or deceptively) simple movie, in spite of its fractured and non-linear narrative. It tells the tale of an emotionally wrecked man, Chow Mo Wan (played by Tony Leung), a reprised character from Wong's critically acclaimed earlier oeuver, _In the Mood for Love (2000)_, and the many beautiful women he keeps and fails to keep, in a time-space continuance that is laden with sepia-tinted memories: a monologue, if you will, of Chow's torrid love affairs, love spats, and the ensuing heartbreaks resulting, no doubt, from the pangs of a failed liaison Chow is trying to escape. It'd appear that the failed relation with Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) in _In the Mood for Love_, who has a "special appearance" in this film, has changed Chow irrevocably, which is key to understanding Chow's troubled soul.

But it is not a sequel necessarily, per se, to _In the Mood for Love_. This film can still be watched on its own, though it'd certainly help if you could link moments in _2046_ to the director's earlier works, for it's laden with jumbled continuity (take the character of Lulu, for example, first seen in _Days of Being Wild (1991)_), hidden meanings (read: Neo-Godardian) and other fun stuff, sorta an insider's joke, if you dig such esoteric things. But I digress. And it's been said that this is a culmination of all the previous filmic experience of director Wong (bordering on narcissism); hence its "end-of-an-era" feel and look is duly appreciated and a point well taken.

In _2046_, Chow's isn't an easily likable character owing to the frailty and the vagaries of his own personal emotions and peccadilloes, but that makes him only human and real, and his character, believable. Take the following exchange:

Su Lizhen (Gong Li) to Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung): Do you know my past?

Professional gambler Su (she who is of the same name as that of Maggie's character in _In the Mood for Love_) asked Chow, dissonantly, questioning the latter essentially whether there is a future for the both of them, if he cannot forget his past. And it's for the same reason, or so we're led to believe, that Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) is left devastated, as Chow cannot treat her any differently from the scores of other women he's seeing; hence eliciting the following memorable line from Bai which I'm sure speaks to most of us one way or another:

Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) to Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung): You may not like me. But I'll like you all the same.

What fools we are made by love. :)

Contrasting Chow as a man who dwells in the past and in need of closure to move on, Tak (Kimura Takuya) isn't ambiguous when it comes to matters of the heart.

Tak (Kimura Takuya) to Wang Jingwen (Faye Wong): I do not know what your answer may be. (I dread to know.) But I need to know.

Here is a man who is not afraid to love and says his love. And he needs to know if his love is unrequited. And in seeking happiness, the message seems to be that there is no other way. Now why does this remind me of all the sorry tales with which we are all-too-familiar with men-who-cannot-commit-or-decide? :) And so the film is thusly replete with impressions of repeated variations of the same theme: the pointlessness of returning to the past. Which is why we have the following line:

Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) to Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung): Why can't it be like before? (The same reason why nobody returns on the 2046 train, in Chow's sci-fi novel of the same name. Seen in this light, it is also a double-entendre for director Wong: Why can't this film be like the one before in the form of _In the Mood for Love_? Where does he go from here?)

Those familiar with Wong's earlier works will notice his signatures throughout: quick cutting, slow motion, fast motion, freeze frames, black and white, tilt shots, color filters, neon-sign lighting, aided ably by three able cinematographers. Production value of _2046_ is expectedly top-notch. Music by Shigeru Umebayashi is haunting and sets the right mood. Zhang Suping (William Chang Suk Ping) does a wonderful job in creating an enrapturing atmosphere set in the late '60s.

How great it is, in an otherwise desolate world of unease, vulnerability, hopelessness, and pathos, we have directors such as Wong to feast our senses. Highly recommended.

A journalist quits his job, when his novels became top-seller. To be able to finish his last novel he needed inspiration, so he revisits a cheap motel which he has lived bittersweet memories with his ex-love, 2 years ago in 1967. The story takes place in 1969 in the same motel, once the novelist decided to stay there.

The novel he was writing has been a science fiction at first. Whereas, he's driven by a serendipity that the name of this novel "2046" is also the room number in which he and his ex has shared a love. Into that room, now a harlot settles in. He enriches his novel by putting himself as the true love of this harlot staying in room 2046. As destiny would have it, when the harlot meets him she really falls in love with him. By courtesy of her swallowing his bait, the novelist subjoins an erotic component into his novel. Let's gather together the first phase of the movie: We have one man and two woman. First woman left him 2 years ago, and he is still in love with her. Then at the present time, the second woman falls in love with him.

The second phase is the vengeance of the novelist from the woman he loved in 1967. This phase forms the essence of the novel: The future in the year 2046. Future is under the control of dreamers. Everybody who can dream and who can love, can travel into 2046 deep in their heart to recapture their lost memories. The novelist never goes there, 'cause he knows that if he goes once, he would never return to the present time, and would stay stuck in the future, living in the memories. Instead of making himself gone, he sends her inconstant love into 2046 as an android woman. Living as an android, the woman doesn't have a heart. But a young man falls in love with her. She yearns for him so much, but she could never express her feelings nor the look in her eyes could ever change; since she has no heart no more. She realizes that she deserves to be loved, and denies herself. She begins suffering of the love she remained lighthearted to the novelist 79 years ago. Witnessing her repentance, the novelist forgives her love; and wants her back at the present time in 1969.

At the last phase the novelist loses himself before his love finds him. Because his novel concludes to an ending which he doesn't have the love for her true love anymore, he depletes his inspirations to finish his novel without the memories of his past love. When she returns to him, he stands indifferent.

An amazing story layering ahead, including tons of short stories inside, and the director Wong Kar Wai uses a giddy and ravishing cinematography for use of symbolism. It's the viewers' duty to solve the puzzles of the storyline, to match the short stories with their attributions and to set in order of the straight-going novel versus unsteadily progressing movie; which altogether I shared with you above.

Both director and the writer of 2046, Wong Kar Wai presents a novel adaptation in the movie, and a movie adaptation in the novel; in conclusion a mixture of two arts on silver screen.