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February 8th, 2006 by Cory Mailliard (Permalink)
Director: Wong Kar Wai Year: 2004 Add Comments |
Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 is a fine little film about love and romance that seems to succeed despite itself. Working from the thesis that love is useless if it does not appear at the right time, the film presents a string of vignettes meant to hammer home its point. Subtle? Perhaps not. Truthful? Absolutely.
Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) from Wong Kar Wai’s own In the Mood for Love is a writer who, in the film’s first moments, finds himself rejected by a lover. After a move to Hong Kong, he reinvents himself as a suave womanizer and meets a succession of beautiful women (Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, and others). Sections of Chow’s sci-fi novel, “2046” are injected into the main plotline as a kind of confessional. Several times throughout the film, characters intone that, in the old days, when people had a secret, they would climb a mountain, carve a hole in a tree, and whisper their secret into the hole. The sci-fi sections of 2046 work as a writer’s version of that same act, but, in the end, they do little other than explicitly state Mr. Chow’s (obvious) feelings at a key moment.
Still, 2046 adds up to something kind of remarkable despite its obvious faults. Consider that three of the leads, Leung, Ziyi, and Takuya Kimura, appear to be speaking their own languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese, respectively), yet their characters appear to understand each other perfectly. As cinematic devices go, it’s piercing thrust that gets to the heart of communication’s role in pain and heartbreak. Leung is quite good as a heel. Amazingly, the more unlikable he becomes, the more we feel sorry for him. As good as Leung is, Zhang Ziyi manages to keep up with him every step of the way.
2046 is the work of three cinematographers, but it is only Christopher Doyle (Hero, Rabbit Proof Fence) who really stands out. Vaguely similar to Doyle’s work on Hero, 2046 is, in its best moments, filled with lush color and amazing detail. Dingy Hong Kong apartments take on a peculiar life and scope. Doyle is one of the best cinematographers working today and Kar Wai provides him ample opportunity to show what he’s capable of.
2046 is far from perfect, but still worth a look.
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