2046 Review from the Toronto Star

[summertime]

Aug. 12, 2005. 01:00 AM

Wong takes love into future


PETER HOWELL
MOVIE CRITIC


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2046



Starring Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, Li Gong, Faye Wong, Maggie Cheung and Takuya Kimura. Written and directed by Wong Kar Wai. 129 minutes. At the Varsity. 14A

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The deleted scenes and alternate ending on the DVD of 2000's In the Mood for Love revealed how different a movie Wong Kar Wai could have made, had he chosen to consummate the affair he so masterfully conjured between Tony Leung's and Maggie Cheung's characters in the Hong Kong of 1962.

Wong opted to ignite the spark without lighting the fire. In so doing he captured the physical hunger for love in a way no other filmmaker yet has. For Wong, love has always been elusive, and possibly just an illusion.

In 2046, Wong's much-laboured and multi-layered sequel to In the Mood for Love, the sex becomes commonplace and even mechanical.

There's a price for being in the mood here, and it starts at $10. But the romance, when it appears, is never less than lyrical.

Leung's character, Chow, while still a writer, is no longer the shy husband straining at his marital bounds; he's an incorrigible rake with Brylcreemed hair and a moustache stolen from Clark Gable. He beds numerous women, each more beautiful than the last (and played by a bevy of top-drawer Asian actresses), but he can't wait for them to leave in the morning.

Chow still yearns for something more meaningful, and still longs for the obscure object of desire Cheung brought to life with the sway of an endless array of silk dresses.

"I can't stop wondering if she loved me or not," Chow sighs.

Wong illustrates this yearning through the device of the number 2046, which variously stands for the hotel room of In the Mood's near tryst (and this movie's many liaisons), the title of a sci-fi novel that Chow is writing, a place somewhere out there where dreams reside and a high-tech train makes only one-way trips, and the date when Hong Kong will finally complete the transition to total Chinese rule.

That's a lot of ideas to pack into one movie, which accounts for why Wong had so much trouble getting the film ready for last year's Cannes Film Festival, where 2046 arrived late and awkwardly edited.

It could also leave you with a sense of yearning of your own, wishing the film could be as relatively straightforward as its predecessor.

It is best to think of 2046 as a series of short stories, pulp fiction penned by a master mood-setter and centred on Chow's character and two seedy rooms in the Oriental Hotel (there's also a room 2047 here, just to confuse you some more). Some of the stories are straight confessions, whispered into silky ears and into erotically charged circular symbols.

In this memory motel, every new conquest comes with the promise of self-awareness, often described in voice-over by Chow, and rich with colour and detail.

There's Lulu (Carina Lau), also known as Mimi, an ex-girlfriend who has learned the stagecraft of life. "No matter what happened, at least she was always the leading lady," Chow says.

The more innocent Jing (Faye Wong), the daughter of the grasping hotel owner, teeters between childish rebellion and adult desire as she attempts to balance Chow's attentions with her growing attraction for a Japanese beau (Takuya Kimura) her father doesn't like.

Li Gong's gambling ace Su Li Zhen (mysteriously named for In the Mood's siren) has one black glove covering a hand that could be wooden, or not; she also has a kiss that could melt concrete.

Maggie Cheung and Chen Chang as the enigmatically named sexbots Slz1960 and cc1966 bring the sci-fi into focus, teaching us that even android girls get the blues. (Cheung is barely seen in the film; she's as elusive as ever.)

Most fetching and fascinating of all is Ziyi Zhang as Bai Ling, a call girl who has yearnings of her own. Her exchanges — both verbal and non-verbal — with Chow are amongst the most intense moments of 2046.

Would it have been asking too much if the movie was just a bit less surreal? Wong perhaps realizes he's testing even those members of his audience who are used to his narrative flights of fancy. Even the musical cues are somewhat puzzling. Nat King Cole is back, but this time singing the overplayed "The Christmas Song" rather than the rapturous "Aquellos Ojos Verdes" or "Te Quiero Dijiste (Magic is the Moonlight)," the tunes that gave In the Mood for Love such hypnotic grace.

Listen to how Chow describes his sci-fi novel: "I made it as bizarre and erotic as possible, without crossing the line."

Does Wong cross the line with 2046? Perhaps he does, if you were hoping for a more conventional or linear sequel.

But his willingness to let himself be completely carried away on the wings of desire is always something to behold, even if understanding doesn't hit you until longer after the final frame.

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