Film: 2046
Release date: 23rd May 2005
Certificate: 12
Running time: 129 mins
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Li Gong, Faye Wong, Takuya Kimura, Ziyi Zhang
Genre: Drama/Romance/Fantasy
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
How to follow up one of the most internationally acclaimed films of recent times? If you’re Wong Kar-wai, you serve up a semi-sequel, sort of-remix. Does 2046 match up to In The Mood For Love?
Picking up four years after the events of In The Mood For Love, newspaper man, Chow (Leung), still nurses a broken heart over the loss of Su Li-zhen, and returns to Hong Kong from Singapore in 1966 as a calculating womaniser who leaves a trail of emotional destruction in his wake.
As he bounces from woman to woman, he documents his experiences in a serialised, allegorical science-fiction story about a semi-mythical utopia called “2046” - a place where people go to “recapture lost memories. Because nothing ever changes in ‘2046’. Nobody really knows if that’s true - because nobody has ever come back…”
What is the significance of the number 2046 as a film title? Is director Wong Kar-wai exploring hitherto un-chartered political waters, presenting audiences with symbolic angst over Hong Kong’s eventual return to overall Chinese control (the famous “one country, two systems” policy being due to expire in the year 2047, with no official word yet on how Hong Kong will be run beyond that point)? How can a character speaking Cantonese have a fluid conversation with a character responding in Mandarin? And why does Gong Li’s character have the same name as the one essayed by Maggie Cheung in Days Of Being Wild and In The Mood For Love?
These are just some of the many questions a first-time viewer will be left scratching their head over during the closing credits of 2046, a film which veers from mildly confusing to outright alienating, all the while being never less than utterly compelling.
Where In The Mood For Love was a heart-driven movie about restrained passion, 2046 is a more cerebral affair about human beings as wounded animals, and the terminal ache of unrealised desire. Thanks in large part to wonderful work from a fine ensemble cast, Wong’s emotional themes resonate profoundly, even if his intellectual commentary may initially seem somewhat garbled.
Gong Li makes a great impression in a very small role, while Zhang Ziyi really begins to show depth and range as a lovelorn escort. But the anchor of the film is Tony Leung, who revisits the romantic hero of In The Mood For Love and re-imagines him as a heartless cad, effortlessly conveying that the promiscuity and emotional cruelty on display are never anything more than weak tonics for his own broken heart.
Technically, the film is never anything less than exquisite. Wong’s visual flourishes remain peerless, whilst the cinematography from Christopher Doyle and Lai Yiu-fai is typically stunning, with its rich texture and originality of composition. Between the fine cast and the matchless crew, a first viewing of 2046 is always arresting, if not especially satisfying.
It’s on repeat viewings that the majesty of the film really shines. With hindsight, the director’s reprisal of music cues from earlier works, such as Days Of Being Wild, become more noticeable, as do various other recalls - such as moments where a character considerately removes a lady’s high heels as she pretends to be asleep; or the use of mysterious female characters who hide behind adopted names/personae in lieu of facing up to who they really are - and in aid of running from memories that are just too painful.
While 2046 may, at times, play like a mid-concert medley of a singer’s greatest hits, to dismiss it as purely self-indulgent is to misunderstand the level that Wong is working on. His abiding theme, consistent in each of his films, is memory and its destructive power over our lives. And what better way to illustrate the weight of memory than to recall characters, metaphors and leitmotifs from his oeuvre?
That being said, 2046 falls just short of ‘classic’ status for this very reason. Though he is among the most distinctive directors working today, Wong’s fingerprints have never been so clearly visible on one of his films before. Where his previous work saw richly realised characters gently meandering through their lives, the director, seemingly at the mercy of their actions (or, more often, inaction), is much more in control of his characters, forcibly guiding them through scenes and sequences to serve his existential commentary. Gone is the exploratory joyousness of Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, and in its place is a colder detachment that one would not normally associate with the director. But this is a minor notch against a film of staggering depth and ambition, that rewards repeat viewings like few others. It may not play well for the uninitiated, but for anyone who has ever seen a single Wong Kar-wai film, it is simply essential.
Not quite a masterpiece, but an engaging and enlightening career retrospective that also happens to be a rather excellent movie in its own right. As the final word on Wong Kar-wai’s cinematic obsession with memory and loneliness, it leaves admirers very excited to see which path he takes with his career from this point. JN
