"He didn't turn back. It's as if he boarded a very long train heading for the drowsy future through the unfathomable night."
Whether or not Wong took influence from German director Wim Wenders, this film bears the closest resemblance to Wender's Wings of Desire. Wong's slow motion, rapid editing, harmonious music, and his obsession with cinematography pulling the story is all reminescent of Wings, as well as the inserted fantasy element of the film. In 2046, Wong emphasizes an exotic beauty to his films, in his themes he portrays every theme like echoes of human thoughts and feelings. Like Wings, he purposely dramatizes his film with visual techniques, intended to exude emotions like echoes, so that the viewer will treat his films like visions of the mind, a constant blur of thoughts and images from the film, like flashes almost. Wong is probably the foremost director in that department. With 2046, he is deliberately anti-focus. While Kieslowski in Three Colors: Rouge focuses the camera so directly on the picturesque shot, the viewer interprets that shot like an aesthetic postcard, a shot that they will never forget. But when you visualize 2046, the shots occur as images occuring in motion, that pass by one after another, another reason why both Wenders and Wong uses such random music in their films, so that their music are not just random tunes, but are complimented by each passing image.
In Wings, the most memorable of shots is probably the scene where Ganz stands above the city with his wings spread out, the wings are purposely out of place as the object of attention, the thing that the viewers will remember the most. In 2046, the shot that I felt incredibly out of place (in a good way), is the scene where Tak is first introduced and the camera blurs. It is such an eye opening scene because of the use of color is a milkyish, blurry, distorted mix, and because the camera first focuses not on his face, but on the light bulb that lit his reflection, and then slowly moves to his face. In other words, it doesn't first focus on his face because Wong intends on giving the background more depth initially, and not the character. An opening shot can speak volumes, and in 2046, I felt that. It's a very subtle shot however, and probably won't be the one that viewers will remember the most, (which is obviously the train rail). Another shot in Wings which is particularly memorable is when the camera pans to above, and makes its way partially to where we can see the city from above. The black and white compliments the shot (in fact in the film I thought the color shots were completely wasted), by showing each building like distinguishable blocks separated from each other, and the black and white, and especially the enriched grey color, compliments a gothic, surreal, heavenly, quality to it. In 2046, Wong also attempts to enhance the experience by making his urban shots look surreal, and at the beginning, when you first set eyes on the fantasy neon city, you'll see the colors moving like streams of electricity, and the city appears to be built from strands of lines instead of solid, building concrete. However, the urban shot is not at all like the urban shots of Blade Runner at the beginning, where the geyser-like fire shoots up from above, that more or less is intended to denote the idea that the society is dystopic, decayed, and succumbed to hopelessness, (the geyser-fire is especially symbolic of this fact), but 2046's look is not exactly utopic in a sense, but rather intended to look more surreal, out of this world, and especially exotic, intriguing, and full of wonder. It can be said that it is meant to look kind of utopic, but it also has a dangerous, unpredictable quality of look to it that suggests that society is mechanical and robotic. (which is what 2046 was) If it's utopic, then it would look more optimistic. However, I think the main angle that Wong aiming for is to make the viewers look at the city with curiosity and wonder, like.... "what really is this society like?"
A common complaint I hear about this film is the reason why Chow initially seems so fond of Bai, yet rejects her almost as suddenly as he is infatuated with her. The complaint is that Wong just gave up on developing the relationship and went on to the next one to fulfill his desire to create an ensemble piece. But, if you contrast the relationship of Chow with Miss Wang, the daughter of the landlord Wang, and see that he fell in love with her and not Bai, you'll realize that Chow has more in common with Miss Wang than Bai and thus Wang easily penetrates his affections. To expand on this point, contrast Wang to Maggie Cheung's Su Li Zhen, the delicate, sensitive, and helpless creature that Chow fell in love with immediately. Wang reminds Chow of her, as those are the exact things he fell in love with, and even more evident of this fact is that Chow fell in love with Su Li Zhen way before she did just by observing her and learning about her suggests that he desires certain qualities in a woman, which is exactly how he fell in love with Wang. He falls in love with people through what he finds beautiful in that person and already makes up his mind, unlike some people who are known to actually meet a person and spend time with them or people who judge by physical looks. Bai more or less represents all the other women whom he regards as a one-night stand, but with a more endearing personality and a stronger will, but her existence is radiated by her sexual appeal and her lack of helplessness. She is sensitive, I'm not suggesting she isn't, however, as you'll see, she refuses to be pushed around by men, suggesting her strong-will, the polar opposite of helplessness. She can help herself. And even if Chow adores those qualities, which he obviously did because of his flirtacious nature, he never regarded them anymore as fun. Why did he never form a relationship from all the other women he sees? They're just fun, and in the film, he subtlety hints to Bai at his thinking that Bai is nothing more than what he finds in the prostitutes he picks up occasionally. During the scene where he pays her, like a prostitute, after them having their first sex together is where the scene turns heads. Other people have wrote more about this, but right there, I think Chow intentionally pulled himself out of that relationship, even if his affection for her was growing more and more and he could have possibly fell in love with her if he wanted. I think it was because he fears he'll get involved with a woman whom his vanity will never permit into his life because she is just too imperfect, she's a prostitute, and although nurturing strong qualities, Chow somewhat looks down upon people like that and thinks of her as a social inferior. He never once chanted at his loving her, but did nothing more than remind her of her cheapness by hurting her self-existence through his offering her money for sex. "Like a discount", is symbolic of the fact that she desires less money from him, when she reduced the amount he gave her to 10 dollars instead of 20, it was to hint to him that she cares for him and the extent to which she hopes he'll accept her. During the scene in which Chow takes Bai out for dinner years after their break-up, when Bai watched Chow pay the dinner in 10 dollar bills that Bai gave him was the final indication of what Chow really saw Bai as. In any case, I believe that segment to be the most complex and up for interpretation.
Contrary to Bai's segment of allure and sexuality, the tone changes drastically during the segment where Miss Wang returns from the institution. The tone of the first segment, which is intended to be alluring and sexy, suddenly turns into a more sombre, dramatic mood. Take for instance, the shot of Faye Wong's back against a rose garden, like a CD cover, but the colors hint at 16th century Renaissance art, and the piano notes replace the latin music to compliment an even bleaker Bergman-esque tone. The piano keys fall delicately, hinting at the delicacy of the Wang's relationship with Chow. That segment is an idealized version of Chow's relationship with Cheung's Su Li Zhen. It's not exactly the same story, but it was the basis of his story 2046, or rather 2047. It is entirely evident that Chow thinks of Wang as Cheung's Su Li Zhen or has for the first time, found true love, since the break-up with Su Li Zhen (Cheung). When he mentioned that his summer with Miss Wang was the happiest he has ever been, it proves even more that there was a quality he found in Wang that he did not see in Bai, and the ability of a person (Wang) to change his life, and shift his life from the gambling, reckless, sex to the artistic minded, appreciative, and fragile was something he didn't even find in Su Li Zhen (Cheung). His relationship with Wang, prompted his artistic vision to the peak (eventually the creation of 2046). Ultimately, this segment, albeit turning out a more appreciative and mature Chow, ultimately serves to highlight the extent of his broken emotions. 2046 is a vessel to voice his melancholy and the voice of his self discovery. Through his relationship with Wang, he rediscovers himself. "A man like me has nothing but time. I need to find people to meet my needs," is referring to the way he regards life then and now, and something of which obviously something he would not use anymore, since, in this segment, he never brings home women anymore, spends his free time being a companion to Wang rather than indulging in his previous temporal pleasures. 2046, however, is not the vessel of optimism. "Where nothing changes," is Chow's desire that love will stay forever and will not be ephemeral as the "summer that didn't last." It is how he desires the world to be, 2046 is his outlet to reality, a portal of escape from the emptyness of life. There is a sense of optimism inserted, but at the same time, he is also describing a world that is so full of nothing, just like his life, an empty hourglass of nothingness. He suggests that reality is ultimately nothing, 2046 an alternate reality where life is even more full of nothingness; a robotic lifestyle of sex, temporal pleasures, and loveless relationships. 2046 is a product of him viewing reality as empty. If it is a sense of optimism, then why did Chow come back on the long train? It was the voice of his contempt of the world, 2046 is the period of his life during his relationship with Bai, the period of life which he gave up, and him coming back on the train is referring to him eventually sick of the world just as he is of his life of temporal pleasures. Other people have wrote that him coming back does indicate optimism in the sense that love is still possible, that the escape from a world where people venture into because they're sick of love and relationships, is the result of them wanting a life without love. Him coming back is an indication that people still desire love, made a mistake in coming to 2046, and however much love is the cloak of your miseries, love is still possible. Another interpretation states that 2046 is the period of his relationship with Bai that he wanted back because he has failed in love once again with Wang. When Wong describes 2046 as the world of temporal pleasures, it could be an outlet of Chow's experiences with Bai. So in essence, the blur between reality and 2046 is Chow's indecision of Wang and Bai. Him going to 2046 refers to his desire to be with Bai, and him coming back refers to his desire to be with Wang.
In the following meeting with Bai, Chow sifts through the remains of his life, now more misguided than ever, after just completing his book, probably will never see Wang ever again, and had a chance meeting with Bai for the first time in years. His meeting with Bai actually confuses him. I'm not sure if he still felt any flame from his relationship with her, but it seems that even if he did, she was not forward enough to tell him that she still loved him, so he never gave an answer. She hinted at her missing him, but the reason for her setting up the meeting was to seek help, so it probably made him feel that she has moved on with her life and regards him as nothing more than a companion. Either way, I still wasn't sure whether he ever wanted to get back with her, but the scene where he is suddenly shocked with the realization that "a second chance" was possible was when, I believe, he thought of Bai. And immediately after, she phoned him and we see her for the first time since the break-up, so obviously the "second chance" was referring to him. However, their meeting did not go that well, for a mix of reasons 1) Chow sees a new transformation in Bai and becomes overwhelmed, so the initial thought was that she was a completely different person 2) Chow might have thought she has moved on 3) Her objective was to seek financial help, the prime indication of his worthlessness 4) She was not brave enough to tell her she still wanted him 5) "Don't be like this..." indicated she cared for him, but he feared getting into a relationship and probably contemplated how far would their relationship last, even if it was to continue. Thus, him leaving to find the second Su Li-Zhen in Singapore was the point in which he felt overwhelmingly confused as well as alienated. It was also him trying to run away from his life, again alluding to 2046 when he wanted to run away to the future world as a method of recovering from his failed love affairs. The second Su Li-Zhen is a very strange character. In a way, she bares the closest resemblance to the original Su Li-Zhen, not quite as delicate as Wang, not near as showy as Bai, but very much the character who finds life almost as meaningless as Chow, probably had several failed love affairs, and has more in common with Chow than any girl he's ever met, short of the original Su Li-Zhen, which could be a possible suggestion as to why he so suddenly wanted to leave with her before even knowing her. In a way, Chow knows that they could never be due to her obvious past from which she knows she cannot escape. The "the second chance" might have also alluded to the second Su Li-Zhen, as at that point was when Chow decided to go to Singapore to find her (his efforts weren't successful). His not finding her is a sort of self-discovery for him, as he realizes now to move on and forget the past, things will never be the same, and start a new life. For instance, the final shots before the ending, where he walks humbly down the staircase and the manner of polite conversation in which he conducts with Bai, indicated that Chow is not anymore a broken-hearted individual, nor someone wishing to rekindle his love affairs, but of someone who had just underwent an enormous self-discovery. The shot of him walking away from Bai indicates the extent of his finally coming into his own notion of himself. "Now I know there's one thing I'll never lend to anyone," indicates that he has nothing more to lend, and that he is on a journey of self-virtue and discovery. However, the ending is ambiguous and this is not the only interpretation. The second interpretation is just that whoever he meets, he will never find someone like the original Su Li-Zhen. Wong has said that Chow's image of the first Su Li-Zhen was an ideal image, a product of subjectivity, and so he has the image of the original Su Li-Zhen as the infalliable true love, no other lover could ever match what the original Su Li-Zhen gave him.
Unlike Antononi, who is well known for glorifying the Italian upper class, often portraying his characters as materialistics bored of the pomp and bombast of mansion-living, Wong is known to glorify the common man, but Wong stretches the alienation theme further by suggesting that time is the real enemy of loneliness. Wong is often known as a romantic director, but his themes of alienation are pervasive in nearly every one of his films, and in 2046, the theme has more traits of Wongish alienation than any one of his other films. Chow Mo-Wan is the most complex character he has ever created, he is the epitome of the every man, the nothing man, the artistic minded and anti-materialist individual who is shown to be the facade of a handsome, reckless, gambling loving gigolo. The defining characteristic of his character is his misguided lifestyle and lack of self-awareness. Wong expands of this idea of alienation by suggesting that time has yet to change him, because he was still the same as he was years ago, still with no grasp of a blueprint of life yet, until the ending. However, in each one of Wong's characters, he suggests that these individuals are all strong-willed, all "common men with souls." A reason why Wong's films are so appealing is because he dramaticizes these characters as the ideal images of the every man. I think another direction Wong is pointing at with Chow is that he wants to make the viewers grasp the reality of his character under his situations. Imagine a life of directionlessness, a constant searching of better ways to find a more successful life. How many hours does he spend under the lamp on his typewriter just staring into nothingness? It's the portrayal of the monotony of life, the full reality of life as uneventful, unangellic, and depressing, and time can only worsen the situation. No wonder after an hour, 10 hours, and 100 hours, the android still doesn't respond, and life in the process, is a victim of the same unchanging pace. The android with delayed reaction is symbolic of this fact, in that it is the striking image of time stopped, and it grows progressively more depressing as you watch how the characters are stuck in a world where time is essentially only the clock that ticks and something you watch as time slowly passes. Time is no longer something of a life process, but it is the true enemy of loneliness. The android with delayed reaction is the image of Wang that Chow creates, but it is also Chow's mirror image, the image of someone who does not take advantage of the virtue of time nor has a sense of time passing by. Chow has neither, but he is still able to realize that time does go by, and it is this fact that leads to his eventual realization that 2046 is just a world. The delayed reaction of the androids could possibly allude to the future in which everything is delayed and reactions happen slowly and robotically, basically the image of a society as robotic and soulless. In this sense, 2046 itself has no grasping of the sense of time, and is nothing more than an even more soulless version of Chow's world. Wong has also said that the android is the possible reflection of Chow, that Chow's life is full of delayed reactions, the inability to appreciate the good things in life until they are gone.
To constrast the aesthetics of In the Mood For Love with 2046, there are both near flawless, but the characteristics actually differ quite a bit. While the aesthetics of "Mood" can be compared to that of a light bulb popping and releasing, 2046's lush visuals hint at exotic, soap-operaish, melodrama. "Mood's" primary colors of forest red and black hints at bleak, European art, but it can also be defined as a truly wild, artistic show, but toned down, and reduced to streets and apartment complexes. The colors in Mood, however, are wildly aesthetic, primarily used to capture the feeling of the night. "Mood" is a spiritual love story, the inassessible arthouse film, so it cannot be compared to 2046's exotic, surreal, melodramatic tone. Wong lends his visual effects more soul than any overused CGI hollywood big budget film. The shots of the future were stunningly and awe-inspiringly beautiful. Wong is quick to reduce the monotony of the shots inside apartment complexes by blurring his background like a scannerly, fading image, by unpredictable camera angles, and by quickly editing his shots as to be reluctant to be blatantly detailed. For instance, the scene where Bai gives her boyfriend the ultimatum; we can't even properly make out her boyfriend's face, and only noticed that he was not Chow by a 3 second shot of him walking away from the room, but we found that out only by his body structure, his face is not even important. In 2046, Wong really got the best out of his entire art and visual effects department.
The music of 2046 cleverly mixes sultry latin dances, operas, and instrumental solos. The latin dances echoes the sexiness and nonchalance of the Hong Kong tuxedo-clad, playboy era. It is the portion of Chow's life that is fun, the portion of his life he dedicates to Bai. The operas compliment Wang's artistic-nimble mind and her delicate, pity-inducing life of helplessness and introversion. The most haunting piece of music is the harmonious tune playing during the scenes of the future, the almost tear-inducing (As Faye Wong states), level of longing and desire that that piece of music suggests is the music of heavens. It's the most lush and odd piece of music in the history of cinema. The music altogether is the perfect blend of sexiness, soap opera, oddness, longing, and pity.
The performances are uniformly excellent, the real revelation being Zhang Ziyi, venturing completely out of her element to squeeze the performance of a lifetime. The perfectly portrayed dance hostess blends a level of sarcasm, flirtation, dislikability, and emotional fervor. Her roles in the past were suited for mythical historical beauties and sweet, country-girlish charm, but her most irregular role proves to be her most endearing, in character, and unique performance of her career. Watching the film several times, I have yet to notice one expression off-key or badly timed. You can feel her throat lumping everytime Leung disappoints her. Leung is excellent, despicable, and playboyish, albeit not as strong as his performance in In the Mood For Love. The rest of the cast, especially Gong Li, all give solid performances in their minimal screentime.
2046 is the film of my imaginations, the cinematic ode to cinema, and the most gorgeous, complex, emotionally endearing, film that I have ever seen. Wong's soul is larger than the film itself and with this, he has truly made his mark in cinema as one of the most distinct and unique directors to ever live. To break the In the Mood For Love and 2046 comparison, I fully submit that 2046 is not only my more preferred film, but also Wong's best work to date. Rating: 10/10
