A spell binding and often perplexing vision – it’s Wong Kai-wai’s much anticipated sequel to In the Mood for Love…
‘Long-awaited’ doesn’t really cover it. First shown at Cannes in an incomplete cut, then pulled from the Edinburgh Film Festival as Wong Kar-wai still wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t look like we were ever going to see his tour de force. But this alleged sequel to In The Mood For Love, with so many direct references to his first ‘proper’ movie Days of Being Wild, is far more an ambitious summation of his work.
Still tortured by his break up with Su Lizhen (played by Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love), Chow (Tony Leung) has moved back to Hong Kong to write for newspapers, reinventing himself as something of a lothario. A chance encounter with a dancer Mimi brings him to room 2046 of a cheap hotel. He takes the room next door, and soon becomes obsessed with it’s new occupant, Miss Bai (Zhang Ziyi), a gold digger from China.
As their relationship turns from flirtation to physical, then threatens to become more serious, Chow curtly cuts her off. He begins writing his most popular serial, a story called ‘2046′ where passengers take endless train journeys in order to regain lost memories.
He remembers another lover called Su Li Zhen (Gong Li) who he met whilst in Singapore. He also begins writing novels with the hotel owners daughter Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong). Yet Chow finds no happiness in any of these relationships. Ultimately he resigns himself to the reality that he could only find that contentment with Su Lizhen.
With slicked back hair and his womanising ways, Tony Leung is the spitting image of the fleeting appearance he made in Days of Being Wild, a prelude to a sequel that was never to be. Until now. You can’t help but feel 2046 IS that sequel, all be it far more ambitious than it could ever have been then. Chow’s treatment of Bai, and the other female characters around him, so echoes the central character of Yuddy in Days of Being Wild, and references to it abound.
He meets Mimi (stage name Lulu), played by Corina Lau, reprising her role from that movie. She has never gotten over her boyfriend who described himself as a ‘bird who could not land’. (Perhaps a tribute to the late Leslie Cheung?) Even Maggie Cheung’s character name is the same in both movies. The experiences that brought Chow to this point, the events shown in In the Mood for Love, almost become inconsequential. For Kar-wai it seems like an opportunity taken to finally complete a story he began nearly 15 years before.
Kar-wai truly toys with our idea of a sequel. Most of the events in 2046 actually entwine with those of In the Mood for Love. All anyone who saw that film really wants is the one thing they know can’t happen, for Tony Leung’s and Maggie Cheung’s character to finally get together. Chow’s sorrow over losing Su Lizhen, his total inability to get over her, fills the film with a melancholy unmatched by any of Wong’s previous films. When Kai-wai says he wanted to write a happy ending, he just couldn’t, it seems more than a little autobiographical.
At times the arduous task of completing the film shows. Kar-wai’s typically circuitous narrative seems to catch up even with himself. Having been stabbed by a jealous boyfriend, the distinct impression is given that Mimi has died – yet towards the end of the film she turns up again.
But this is a sumptuous production. Once again, Wong’s love of the sixties is displayed to fullest. His leading ladies look stunning in their period dress. His vision of the future – though reminiscent of his video for DJ Shadow’s Six Days and rather oddly sponsored by LG Electronics(!) – is a dazzlingly stylised mix of Blade Runner and Japanese Anime. Christopher Doyle, Kar-wai’s frequent collaborator, is joined by two other cinematographers, Kwan Pun-leung and Lai Yui-fat.
Kar-wai’s use of music is, again, unmatched. No one has the same knack for underpinning their soundtrack so emotively, whether the song be classical, fifties/sixties pop and Canto pop (particularly cover versions).
In the Mood for Love took those quintessentially Kar-wai themes of longing, unspoken feelings and missed opportunities and made them accessible, without pandering to a wider audience. In many respects 2046, does the opposite, it makes them elusive once again. Undeniably self-indulgent in a way only Kar-wai could possibly get away with, you’d need to be a real fan of his work to stick with the film. It’s an incredible, singular vision like no other. But it just won’t appeal to everyone.
