A sequel to Wong's 2000 film, "In the Mood for Love," an elegiac ode to romantic loss and longing. "Mood" was for the most part coherent and achingly lovely in its looks and sounds. "2046" is also visually enchanting and the soundtrack again includes pop hits from the period as a nostalgic touch, but the visuals and sounds are less impressive than in its predecessor, and, in every other sense, "2046" isn't as good a film as "Mood."
Most of the earlier film was set in Hong Kong in 1962. Two neighbors, Chow Mu Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Zhen Su Li (Maggie Cheung), found themselves sadly adrift after their spouses had jilted them and gone off together. Chow and Mrs. Zhen slowly developed an oblique, reticent, formalized and chaste relationship, but it was nonetheless comforting.
Chow, we were given reason to believe, came to care more deeply for Zhen perhaps than she was able to requite. Near the end, "Mood" became fragmented and difficult to follow as the years slipped by to 1966, and Chow, a newspaper correspondent, was assigned abroad, first to Japan, later to Singapore. Once he returned to the old apartment house in Hong Kong, searching in vain for Mrs. Zhen.
"2046" picks up the story in 1967. The narrative seems confused and muddled by design, perhaps because it is meant to represents Chow's memories and dreams, rather than a "real" sequence of events. Mr. Leung's character, Mr. Chow, seems transformed in personality, and not for the better, when compared to his conduct in "Mood." Rather than the wistful, subdued, formal and tactful man he used to be, he has become hedonistic, unctuous, predatory toward women, a drinker and gambler, sort of a nasty fellow.
The new film more-or-less traces his encounters with three women in the late 1960s in Hong Kong: Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong), Chow's landlord's daughter, who is in love with a Japanese man (Chow's relationship with Ms. Wang is platonic, though, in a futuristic fantasy sequence, he has an amorous encounter with a robotic woman identical in facial features to Wang); Bai Ling (Ziyi Zhang), a prostitute bunking in the room next to Chow's they share sex and drink a lot together; and Zhen Su Li (Gong Li), a black clad femme fatale gambler with the same name as Chow's love interest in "Mood." Maggie Cheung also puts in a minor appearance as the original Zhen Su Li.
It's hard to know exactly what's going on much of the time. As Roger Ebert notes so eloquently, the film "exists primarily as a visual style imposed upon beautiful faces." Just for the record, the number 2046 stands for (1) the room next door to Chow's at the Oriental Hotel; (2) a room with the same number in the earlier film, "Mood"; (3) the title of a science fiction novel Chow is writing; (4) a mythical place that may or may not be identical to what's in the novel, a place we can all go to in order to embrace all of our memories, though no one who goes there ever escapes (except for the Japanese man who may be Wang Jing Wen's sweetie); and (5) the future date (in fact) when Hong Kong's quasi-independence from mainland China ceases.
If there's an overarching theme that spans Wong's two films (and there may not be one, except in the imagination of the viewer), it might be that life is plagued by discontinuities, ruptures even, that can be ruinous; the only hope of pulling things together lies in accessing our memories and dreams, but, alas, they are discontinuous as well. If we give in to the dream world totally, we are lost to this world: we never come back. The only other option available is not to care, to inure oneself, to live for today and shunt all genuine feelings aside.
If you endorse any of the following three criteria, I think you'll like this film: (1) If you liked Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad"; (2) If you enjoy songs by Nat "King" Cole; or (3) If you love to gaze at gorgeous oriental women. I preferred the more tightly woven storyline in "In the Mood for Love." Oh, and also the rain...I missed "Mood's" rain in "2046." (In Cantonese, Mandarin & Japanese). My rating: 6/10 (B-). (Film seen on 10/30/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.
Most of the earlier film was set in Hong Kong in 1962. Two neighbors, Chow Mu Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Zhen Su Li (Maggie Cheung), found themselves sadly adrift after their spouses had jilted them and gone off together. Chow and Mrs. Zhen slowly developed an oblique, reticent, formalized and chaste relationship, but it was nonetheless comforting.
Chow, we were given reason to believe, came to care more deeply for Zhen perhaps than she was able to requite. Near the end, "Mood" became fragmented and difficult to follow as the years slipped by to 1966, and Chow, a newspaper correspondent, was assigned abroad, first to Japan, later to Singapore. Once he returned to the old apartment house in Hong Kong, searching in vain for Mrs. Zhen.
"2046" picks up the story in 1967. The narrative seems confused and muddled by design, perhaps because it is meant to represents Chow's memories and dreams, rather than a "real" sequence of events. Mr. Leung's character, Mr. Chow, seems transformed in personality, and not for the better, when compared to his conduct in "Mood." Rather than the wistful, subdued, formal and tactful man he used to be, he has become hedonistic, unctuous, predatory toward women, a drinker and gambler, sort of a nasty fellow.
The new film more-or-less traces his encounters with three women in the late 1960s in Hong Kong: Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong), Chow's landlord's daughter, who is in love with a Japanese man (Chow's relationship with Ms. Wang is platonic, though, in a futuristic fantasy sequence, he has an amorous encounter with a robotic woman identical in facial features to Wang); Bai Ling (Ziyi Zhang), a prostitute bunking in the room next to Chow's they share sex and drink a lot together; and Zhen Su Li (Gong Li), a black clad femme fatale gambler with the same name as Chow's love interest in "Mood." Maggie Cheung also puts in a minor appearance as the original Zhen Su Li.
It's hard to know exactly what's going on much of the time. As Roger Ebert notes so eloquently, the film "exists primarily as a visual style imposed upon beautiful faces." Just for the record, the number 2046 stands for (1) the room next door to Chow's at the Oriental Hotel; (2) a room with the same number in the earlier film, "Mood"; (3) the title of a science fiction novel Chow is writing; (4) a mythical place that may or may not be identical to what's in the novel, a place we can all go to in order to embrace all of our memories, though no one who goes there ever escapes (except for the Japanese man who may be Wang Jing Wen's sweetie); and (5) the future date (in fact) when Hong Kong's quasi-independence from mainland China ceases.
If there's an overarching theme that spans Wong's two films (and there may not be one, except in the imagination of the viewer), it might be that life is plagued by discontinuities, ruptures even, that can be ruinous; the only hope of pulling things together lies in accessing our memories and dreams, but, alas, they are discontinuous as well. If we give in to the dream world totally, we are lost to this world: we never come back. The only other option available is not to care, to inure oneself, to live for today and shunt all genuine feelings aside.
If you endorse any of the following three criteria, I think you'll like this film: (1) If you liked Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad"; (2) If you enjoy songs by Nat "King" Cole; or (3) If you love to gaze at gorgeous oriental women. I preferred the more tightly woven storyline in "In the Mood for Love." Oh, and also the rain...I missed "Mood's" rain in "2046." (In Cantonese, Mandarin & Japanese). My rating: 6/10 (B-). (Film seen on 10/30/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.