Cinematic gambler

[Sandy]

Cinematic gambler

With his latest movie opening in local theatres next week, Hong Kong cult director Wong Kar-wai talks about karma, juggling with time and his disdain for labels

Story by KONG RITHDEE

http://www.bangkokpost.com/en/280105_Realtime/28Jan2005_real51.php

With his trademark dark glasses, Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai has shifted the seat of global artistic power to the East with his string of sensual movies. Wong's "2046" is opening here next weekend.

Wong Kar-wai wears shades and chain-smokes as he sits telling us how impossible it is for him to analyse his own work.

A lot of people have tried, and they've come up with a stock of rhetorical terminologies that sound cool and cliched, but eventually seem so superficial compared to the depth of ambiguity that permeates his movies. "Audience and critics say my films are about loneliness and alienation," says the Hong Kong director. "But I'd like to share a secret. All the characters in my films are people I care about. They're like my neighbours, my friends, who have the same problems as I do. Loneliness and alienation? I know a lot of people say those things, but for me it's just more than that."

Wong's latest picture, the nostalgic-futuristic love opera 2046, only ratifies his status as one of the most influential filmmakers of modern cinema. The film, which suffocates viewers with its lush eroticism, drew sold-out crowds to its special screening during last week's Bangkok International Film Festival. And after a long delay, 2046 will finally open in Bangkok theatres next weekend.

From a director who could make coiling smoke sexy, 2046 is so ravishing it hurts your eyes. The movie stars Tony Leung as a Mr Chow, a writer in late 1960s Hong Kong who rents a dingy room in a motel to write a sci-fi novel about a train that transports people to discover their memories in the year 2046. When he's not busy with his pen, Mr Chow is busily lusting after gorgeous women, and soon the film takes us inside the 2046 train where a male passenger is beseeching a pretty android to love him as the bogey speeds past a dazzling, breahtless phosphorescent dreamscape.

The movie, Wong says, is in a way a continuation from his previous work, the stunning In the Mood for Love. And combined with his earlier opuses _ the odes to disaffected youth Days of Being Wild and Chungking Express, the gay love story Happy Together and the post-modern martial arts take Ashes of Time _ Wong's body of work has tuned itself into the wavelength of modern sensiblities and shifted the seat of global artistic power more towards the East.

But despite the heavy Oriental elements of his work, Wong dismisses such East-West distinction as a mere label. "I don't think filmmaking should have anything to do with nationality," he says. "It doesn't concern me much if the people in the West happen to like my films, because I think of filmmaking in terms of a world _ a cinematic world. You shouldn't create something that can only be understood only by the Chinese or the Thais _ you shouldn't make a film for only one group of people. Filmmaking is like gambling, you think somebody will like it but they may not. But of course, there's always something that's universal, like emotion, and that's what my films are all about."

About that, and something else too. In many of his movies, and particularly in 2046, Wong flips the idea of "Time" and juggles the present, the past and the future with a fluency of a seasoned card dealer. Such liquifying of a solid concept again makes his films a topic of discussion among Western cinephiles, but Wong's own analysis on the issue perhaps shows his intellectual roots in Eastern philosophies.

"What I did with 'time' in 2046 is a very Thai theme," he says, laughing though we know he's not joking. "It's a very Oriental film, very Buddhist even. Because in the east Time is always conceived like this _ that there's no future and no past. Actually I think I don't have to explain this so much to the Thais because everybody here already understands it!

"Really, I think it's easier for you to look at it from a Buddhist perspective. 2046 is all about love and relationships and emotions _ it's what... what do we call it? Karma? That's just what it is."

Obviously Wong's reputation has put him into a cycle of good karma, at least for now. Despite his eccentric work style _ he has no script, he rarely explains to his actors what the film is about, he spends lots of time shooting and reshooting and editing and re-editing a movie _ Wong's initial cult status has now transformed him into a global pop figure. His next film, which will begin production this year, is at the moment entitled The Lady from Shanghai, and will star an entity no less than Nicole Kidman.

The film, a thriller, will be shot in China and Russia. And no, Kidman has never asked him for a complete script. "She's knowledgable," says Wong, probably meaning she knows his script-less condition. "And she knows what filmmaking is all about."

Then in 2006, Wong plans to launch his long-awaited project about the kung-fu master who mentored Bruce Lee into a fighting sensation. Called The Grand Master, it'll star Wong's favourite Tony Leung as the title character. "Tony is a serious actor," the director says. "He has so many chances to make money easily, but for him to make a film means passion. We have to push back the date to 2006 because Tony wants to [stop making films and] have his own moment for the time being. To play the grandmaster he needs a lot of preparation, and he'll tell me when he's ready to go for it."

As 2046 works as a conclusion to a chapter in his filmmaking journey, Wong himself, too, says he's ready to open up a new one with his two new films. To many, this man in his perpetual dark glasses is one of the directors who holds the key to the future of cinema, but such pompous acclaim sounds so superficial compared to Wong's idea of how artists should find their place in the world today.

"I think artists should develop the kind of renaissance attitude," he says. "One day we can make film [if it can express ourselves]. The next day we can write, and the next day we can paint."

And for himself, what would he like to do next? Writing? Wong shakes his head. Painting? He still shakes his head.

"To cook food," he says. "I want to cook good food."
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The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. --- Nelson Mandela