Quinoa1984

I would be lying if I said every bit of the storytelling was easy to follow in the first half - or that isn't quite right, more than the pacing is so break-neck you feel like Tsui Hark is a little worried the audience might lose what's happening if he isn't throwing some bit of broad comic or dramatic business - but what he is truly gifted at here, which is staging equally intense comedy and acting and just giving all the room for his totally charismatic and electric and even kind of adorable cast of women and (some) men playing out roles upon roles, makes up the difference for a pretty spectacular thrill ride.

Brigitte Lin is the more grounded dramaric foundation here (quite the departure for me from the Wong Kar Wai I've seen her in previously), but the unabashed joy is seeing Yeh and Chung play off of Lin as an unlikely trio (come to think of it put this on a double with the Heroic Trio and you got... six great performances!) This is a movie that has a terrific backdrop of the Chinese theater of the turn of the 20th century and that is captivating enough, but what keeps one hooked in is the subterfuge and everything the ladies have to do to get this or that item (key, Secret President Papers above all), and that when the action and fights and guns kick in... whoa, baby.

As a story of espionage maybe Hark knows he has to rely on his cast and stunt team to kick it into over-drive, but he understands that this movie is about the kind of Big Dance that someone has to do on a stage, in playing a man or what it even means for a woman to play a woman (where is the spark in that... until it is amazing) that will keep us glued and laughing at how Big it gets.

There is tonal whiplash sometimes, to be sure - we go from a rather harrowing and upsetting torture sequence to a flamboyant seduction to a "this character is totally alive even though they are totally dead" gag - and yet I was into those parts the most, when Hark just gives in to how behind the giant mustaches and wigs these men are total.... dopes and have little chance against our beleaguered heroes.

In short, it takes a few minutes to fully lock in, not to mention sort of let go how we shouldn't care about the possible romantic tension between spies, and once we do we can wholly soak up the balls to the wall action and comedy and (at points) blood-soaked melodrama. This is one of those pulpy delights that shows a director in love with the ways he can throw bodies through the air in visceral displays of bravado and how funny it is seeing someone rearrange a blanket to disguise unwanted guests.

(I should note the version I saw, which is screening with 4K screenings of the full In the Mood for Love feature, runs 9 minutes nit 32 as listed here)

On one hand, I am always glad to see something by Wong Kar Wai that has eluded me (or just been unavailable outside of digging through torrent sites online or for a poor copy on youtube), and this is fascinating in the ways that WKW lets his performers have a freedom to play in what are otherwise carefully composed and timed compositions (even, probably especially when, they seem to be freewheeling and hand held shots). On the other hand, the title of this could be misleading for some who have little idea what this actually is.

From what little I've read, this was meant to be its own part of a trilogy of films about... food (the actual feature of In the Mood for Love just got to be so long as its own thing). That makes more sense as this is much closer to the rougher street-level kind of stylized naturalism that Wong had with his mid 1990s films like Chungking Express or Fallen Angels, up to and including a washed out color palette. If not for the now immortal musical cue by Shigeru Umebayashi being featured briefly, it would have little outside of the two leads to connect it to the feature, albeit there is a poetic streak that runs through the narration that speaks to something of longing for Leung to Cheung here... just not that subdued kind you may be expecting.

I still enjoyed this a lot for what it is which is a scenario surrounding a botched shoplifting, a punch in the nose and a lot of iced cakes being gorged by the two leads, and it does get in and out quick enough that the shallow pleasures that abound are enough for it to get by. It is an extended sketch more than something that requires a fleshed out narrative, but the actors are present and their chemistry as before is electric so that helps. A lot.

The Working Class Goes to Heaven is a film full of loud, abrasive people but set in a world where being loud and abrasive is how to get to people - whether for positive or negative results (or a mix of "well... now I'm out of work and hanging out with some loonies at the asylum"). I was always impressed by the energy and ferocity of Gian Maria Volonte here, though early on I wondered if the energy level had already reached a peak - I'm talking in the first major set piece where we see Lulu, the "Company Man" so to speak who is super productive and is all about work-work-work he is already pitched so high. But this is by design since by minute 30 he loses a finger in an accident with the machine, and then he is left out to dry by his employers - how come he isn't productive and is slipping, the guy in the lab coat coming around to needle him points out, you only lost *one* finger, after all - and realizes he should join the Union organizers and student protesters.

It is almost like it isn't just the character but the film itself that is at a high temperature, like the blood pressure is 300 over 150 and it barely gets down. But this is a story that you may go in thinking will be a polemic or of sociological interest mostly and instead reveals itself, thank goodness, as a character study of a man who comes to realize he actually, really, does not enjoy working. That is something hard to get into Lulu's mind, and like any hot-blooded creature he takes out his stresses on his girlfriend (he has a biological child who is with his mother in another family) and just at his co-workers at large. It's a film that seems like it is at a high velocity, yet it isn't until Lulu is let go by his employers - staying on the hood of one of the bosses's cars and not getting off till he is dragged away in a frenzy may do that - that director/co-writer Elio Petri shows what change is happening to Lulu: without work... who is he?

Not unlike Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Working Class hits its richest moments when, comparatively at least to early on and especially in the middle, it quiets down and we see Lulu in his desperation in his apartment (his girlfriend and son leave him after he brings over demonstrators to his place at night as they plot their next moves) going through his closet, or as he calls it his "museum" to throw things out. He gets some news right after this and the story and character deepen even more, in particular there is that look in Volante's eyes that shows that despite getting what he supposedly wants by the end it doesn't cure a much greater unhappiness.

Indeed the film is really about that most of all: are you happy or unhappy with what you have in your life? There is a scene midway through where Lulu and a co-worker have a sexual tryst in his car, but since it is, well, the size of a small 1970's Italian car, it is extremely difficult to maneuver and painful and, of course, it is over far too quickly (the food is terrible - such small portions, that old joke). This is what Lulu has put blinders over himself early on, even as there is this desperation in his eyes about what he is doing at that factory and having that crazy out-put (one piece, ass piece, something along those lines he says to keep up his momentum), and by near the end he has a victory in a sense but fails to change himself on an emotional level, and that is the tragedy shown here.

Not a great film, but a very good one and featuring a performance that once again shows how versatile Volante was as a performer; extra kudos for Melato as the frustrated partner who gets as fiery as he does.