Tuesday, June 14, 2005
2046 (2004)
Director: Wong Kar Wai
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
The starling beauty and visual artistry must be noted first when discussing a Wong Kar Wai film. I would go as far as to say he is the most visually beautiful filmmaker working today. Kar Wai constructs his films to allow his audience to indulge in his visual gift. First, he slows his films way down when compared with typical cinematic pacing – and when compared to the frenetic editing of many contemporary films his seem to be running with the projector set at too slow a speed. Kar Wai employs many extended still camera shots on unmoving figures and landscapes so his audience can appreciate and comprehend his visual compositions – compositions that could withstand (if extracted from the frame and placed in a gallery) the scrutiny given a still photograph or oil painting (which many of these images resemble). Kar Wai also has numerous slow-motion shots (of a beautiful woman walking, of curling cigarette smoke, of a tear falling or pipe dripping) so we can further languish in his artistry and appreciate these gorgeously composed moving images. Kar Wai’s films are a breathe-taking antidote to the MTV inspired rapid-fire edit – by comparison watching a Kar Wai film is more like a walk through an art gallery but a gallery in which the accumulation of gorgeous images tell a complex narrative.
2046 is just as beautifully imagined as Kar Wai earlier masterpiece, In the Mood for Love. However, 2046 does not work emotionally. We in the audience remain oddly cold and distant from the characters and their relationships throughout the film. Somehow, we cannot find anyone to sympathize with or any one’s love to root for.
This emotional coldness, however, is an integral part of the story. 2046 depicts a romantic philosophy – each one of us can truly fall in love only once, and once that lover is no longer ours we can never truly be in love again. As one character puts it “if we fall in love with that person too soon or too late” we become like Mr. Chow, moving restlessly from one relationship to another perhaps never realizing why our relationships are ultimately unfulfilling. In 2046 Mr. Chow embodies this theory as we see his inability to have a truly fulfilling relationship because he had already found and lost his one love (as seen in In the Mood For Love).
The film follows a number of relationships and these stories are complexly interwoven. Further complicating the plot are scenes from Mr. Chow’s science-fiction story he is writing, entitled 2046, and which is based on his relationships. This devise of the story in a story is a vehicle for Kar Wai's exposition on the film’s romantic philosophy and Mr. Chow’s reflection on his life and relationships.
There are two main flaws in 2046. The structure is too complex making the interweaving stories really difficult to follow. (Or perhaps I missed too many subtitles being unable to take my eyes off Kar Wai's visual beauty.) Also, this movie about relationships is oddly cold and unemotional. It is possible the film is intentionally unemotional to reflect Mr. Chow’s own inner detachment. And though this may sound like a good idea in theory, in the practice of watching the film it is a flaw, one which ultimately dooms the film as a whole.
Should you see it? Opt for In the Mood for Love – it is just as gorgeously shot and filled with all the emotion missing in 2046.
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
The starling beauty and visual artistry must be noted first when discussing a Wong Kar Wai film. I would go as far as to say he is the most visually beautiful filmmaker working today. Kar Wai constructs his films to allow his audience to indulge in his visual gift. First, he slows his films way down when compared with typical cinematic pacing – and when compared to the frenetic editing of many contemporary films his seem to be running with the projector set at too slow a speed. Kar Wai employs many extended still camera shots on unmoving figures and landscapes so his audience can appreciate and comprehend his visual compositions – compositions that could withstand (if extracted from the frame and placed in a gallery) the scrutiny given a still photograph or oil painting (which many of these images resemble). Kar Wai also has numerous slow-motion shots (of a beautiful woman walking, of curling cigarette smoke, of a tear falling or pipe dripping) so we can further languish in his artistry and appreciate these gorgeously composed moving images. Kar Wai’s films are a breathe-taking antidote to the MTV inspired rapid-fire edit – by comparison watching a Kar Wai film is more like a walk through an art gallery but a gallery in which the accumulation of gorgeous images tell a complex narrative.
2046 is just as beautifully imagined as Kar Wai earlier masterpiece, In the Mood for Love. However, 2046 does not work emotionally. We in the audience remain oddly cold and distant from the characters and their relationships throughout the film. Somehow, we cannot find anyone to sympathize with or any one’s love to root for.
This emotional coldness, however, is an integral part of the story. 2046 depicts a romantic philosophy – each one of us can truly fall in love only once, and once that lover is no longer ours we can never truly be in love again. As one character puts it “if we fall in love with that person too soon or too late” we become like Mr. Chow, moving restlessly from one relationship to another perhaps never realizing why our relationships are ultimately unfulfilling. In 2046 Mr. Chow embodies this theory as we see his inability to have a truly fulfilling relationship because he had already found and lost his one love (as seen in In the Mood For Love).
The film follows a number of relationships and these stories are complexly interwoven. Further complicating the plot are scenes from Mr. Chow’s science-fiction story he is writing, entitled 2046, and which is based on his relationships. This devise of the story in a story is a vehicle for Kar Wai's exposition on the film’s romantic philosophy and Mr. Chow’s reflection on his life and relationships.
There are two main flaws in 2046. The structure is too complex making the interweaving stories really difficult to follow. (Or perhaps I missed too many subtitles being unable to take my eyes off Kar Wai's visual beauty.) Also, this movie about relationships is oddly cold and unemotional. It is possible the film is intentionally unemotional to reflect Mr. Chow’s own inner detachment. And though this may sound like a good idea in theory, in the practice of watching the film it is a flaw, one which ultimately dooms the film as a whole.
Should you see it? Opt for In the Mood for Love – it is just as gorgeously shot and filled with all the emotion missing in 2046.
