I saw “2046” in the first weekend of the Seattle International Film Festival last May, at a Friday night late show that started even later than it was supposed to. I don’t know how many movies I’d seen that week, and I’d stayed out too long at the opening-night party the night before, so I was pretty certain I was going to be nodding off at some point in the movie.
After all, it was a film by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, and although I had found his previous films (including “Chungking Express” and “Fallen Angels”) interesting and visually beautiful, he’d made my eyelids droop.
| An experience: In a Hong Kong hotel in the mid-1960s, a writer of pulp fiction (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) moves through a series of girlfriends (including Zhang Ziyi and Faye Wong). This latest melancholy mood piece by director Wong Kar-Wai is a gorgeous and seductive experience, even if it has no story. (In Cantonese and Mandarin, with English subtitles.)
Rated: R rating is for subject matter. |
So nap time was indicated. And yet, when “2046” ended 129 minutes later, I was wide awake – rapt, even. If you’re in the mood for this movie, it will suspend you in a seductive web.
In a sideways manner, “2046” is a follow-up to Wong’s 2000 film, “In the Mood for Love.” But you don’t have to know that movie to love this one.
The central character is Chow, played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai. It’s true that this is the same actor, with the same character name, from “In the Mood for Love,” but the conception of this character is quite different.
Chow is a writer of pulp fiction, living in 1966 Hong Kong. We see occasional glimpses of a science fiction story he is working on, which might be set in the year 2046. On the other hand, 2046 is the number of the room next door to his in the hotel where he lives, and it’s also the year Hong Kong will be completely absorbed back into China.
Women pass in and out of the hotel, and through Chow’s life. He meets up with an old flame (Carina Lau), although she does not last in his life, or the world, too long. There’s also the daughter (Faye Wong) of the hotel owner, who is engaged to a Japanese man but enjoys Chow’s attention anyway. (Singer Faye Wong played the adorable fast-food girl in “Chungking Express,” a performance that inspired a cult around her.)
But the most blazing woman in the film is a prostitute (Zhang Ziyi) who moves into room 2046. She and Chow have a flirtatious friendship that turns to passion, but it doesn’t turn out as expected. Zhang Ziyi, the young star of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hero,” proves her dramatic chops here with a truly electric performance, while Tony Leung perfects his melancholy air of world-weariness.
There isn’t a story per se. Time passes in “2046,” Chow moves through his women with blunt honesty, if not a great deal of tenderness. The tempo, music and the gorgeous production design all contribute to the nostalgic mood. Every movie is a memory of something, and Wong Kar-Wai has made that idea his approach.
That mood of aching memory will be enough for fans of Wong Kar-Wai’s world, but probably not enough for more story-hungry moviegoers. It sure kept me awake, though.
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