2046 – Wong Kar-Wai
It is no wonder Quentin Tarantino worships Wong Kar-Wai. With his characteristic flashback style of narrative, director Wong Kar-Wai uses cutting technique usually reserved for action or intrigue to tell very poignant love stories. With 2046, he completes the cycle of films about unrequited love, all starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai. For fans of Wong Kar-Wai who have seen Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, the two previous films in the trilogy, 2046 will blow their minds. Dedicated fans will gleefully point out all the little echoing touches that the director intentionally places in this third film.
For someone viewing a Wong Kar-Wai film for the first time, the story may be a little difficult to follow, but it does not take away from the mind-blowing. Tony Leung plays a writer in 1960’s Hong Kong, who is involved in many intertwining relationships with various beautiful women who wear cheongsams. Many of the women are played by actresses who played love interests in the two previous films, though their roles are new characters in the huge web that is the story of Tony Leung. Tony Leung’s character writes for various newspapers, but his true passion is a futuristic novel about a train that leaves for the year 2046 every so often. As the narration emphasizes, people take the train to 2046 to find their old memories; nobody ever tries to come back, except for the narrator.
In the very futuristic opening sequence of the film, a Japanese narrator describes how he has suffered for a long time on the train to 2046, and how he wishes to return. The futuristic aspects of the film are parts of the novel being written in 1960’s Hong Kong by Tony Leung and his landlord’s daughter, played by Wang Faye. In that regard, they reprise a previous love narrative featured in Chungking Express. Flashbacks of Tony Leung’s unrequited love with Maggie Cheung’s character Su Lizhen are paralleled with Li Gong playing a futuristic Su Lizhen who wins a lot of money for Tony Leung in a casino. If you don’t have an astute eye for differentiating beautiful Asian actresses, this film will be extremely difficult to digest.
Like the other two films, 2046 ends like an open-ended question. All the viewer ever really learns about the characters is that they have bad timing when it comes to love, and that every one of them has a secret to tell to their own “hole in a tree.” Whatever opinion the audience takes away from the film is what Wong Kar-Wai intended in making such an open-ended film.
This film is not intended for people looking for a relaxing way to end their evening; the story told in pieces makes anyone trying to follow the connections ponder throughout the entire film. By the end of the movie, even a smear of lipstick will start to take on significance, making the audience recall a previous scene or previous actress with smeared lipstick. The acting is incredible, making each temporally disconnected scene flow together as if the parallel stories occurring in multiple time periods are in fact one story, giving the acting in this film an A. The visuals and music are stunning, as is expected from such a fine director. Every shot is like a component of a waltz, flowing into the next while remaining individual maneuvers. The originality of the story certainly receives an A, though the enjoyability might be questionable. For people willing to sit through the film to take in all the little details that make the multiple narratives cohesive, 2046 is very rewarding. For people looking for a distraction, this film will be very painful to watch. Overall, 2046 is an A in my book, if only for the incredible music and dance-like quality of the picture.
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