Comments on: Comments on 33277

Post number 33277

matteo — Mon, 24 May 2004 08:42:39 -0800

In the Mood for Rapture. "Forget the completion anxiety that attended Wong Kar-wai's new film 2046 — four years in the gestating, with scenes still being shot a few weeks ago — what 2046 makes unavoidably clear, is that Wong Kar-wai is the most romantic filmmaker in the world. Love, the playwright Terry Johnson wrote, is something you fall in. Wong's films make art out of that vertiginous feeling. They soar as their characters plummet". It is a sequel of sorts to Wong's In the Mood for Love. It is the story of a writer: in his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention: to recapture their lost memories. (more inside)

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 24 May 2004 08:48:40 -0800

2046 has been shot by three directors of photography, the wonderful Christopher Doyle among them. Wong Kar-wai's fans should check out this site, where you can see Chungking Express locations in real life HK.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Mon, 24 May 2004 09:07:10 -0800

Great post, matteo!

By: Voivod

Voivod — Mon, 24 May 2004 09:18:19 -0800

Wow, fantastic. Dying to see this!

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Mon, 24 May 2004 09:19:18 -0800

[This is good]

By: grimley

grimley — Mon, 24 May 2004 09:41:52 -0800

he is a favorite here too. how long until I get to see it? (that's the thing I hate about cannes... know that there are all these films out there and not knowing if or when I'll see them).

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 24 May 2004 10:16:05 -0800

Posters, screen captures and dvd reviews for In the Mood for Love here (the reviewer states that apparently the French Region 2 Special Edition dvd is a better transfer than Criterion's own)

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Mon, 24 May 2004 10:17:56 -0800

oooh, this should keep me busy...rock on with your roman godlike self matteo. :)

By: kenko

kenko — Mon, 24 May 2004 11:25:41 -0800

In the Mood for Love is an amazing movie. I'll definitely be seeing 2046. Great post, too.

By: thomcatspike

thomcatspike — Mon, 24 May 2004 11:40:09 -0800

"In incandescent images of glamorous performers, he details love's anguish and rapture, which are often the same thing." Fantastic use of the word "rapture"; my dates leave me rapturous. Better use of the word than describing Christ's return.

By: aramaic

aramaic — Mon, 24 May 2004 12:33:08 -0800

my dates leave me rapturous I hate you.

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Mon, 24 May 2004 12:51:02 -0800

It's a little hard to argue that the Palme d'Or vote for Farneheit 911 was anything other than a cheap political snap while there's a film like 2046 gathering the sort of attention and acclaim that it did... I for one cannot wait to see it myself.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Mon, 24 May 2004 14:47:03 -0800

It's a little hard to argue that the Palme d'Or vote for Fahrenheit 911 was anything other than a cheap political snap while there's a film like 2046 gathering the sort of attention and acclaim that it did... I for one cannot wait to see it myself. So, JollyWanker, you're making a judgement even though you've only seen one of the two films (Fahrenheit 911, I assume, as you are still waiting to see 2046)? It seems like it might be better to wait until you've seen both before you can declare that argument isn't even possible. There were an awful lot of people here a couple of days ago expressing their opinion about the Moore film without having seen it. I, personally, find it hard to issue a judgement about a work of art without having first experienced it.

By: shortfuse

shortfuse — Mon, 24 May 2004 15:04:28 -0800

matteo - nice post and links. Thanks. I've been keeping a list of 2046 videos on my weblog, including the ones from the Cannes 2004 site and a couple of others that show longer scenes with dialogue. One link I would add to your post is the press page of the french distributor for 2046, which isn't linked from their main page (which was the last link in your post). The press page has a PDF file with high-res imagery from 2046. Gorgeous stuff.

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 24 May 2004 16:16:21 -0800

by the way, Maggie Cheung fans shouldn't forget the sweet (and probably too cute for its own good), interesting romantic comedy/drama Comrades, Almost a Love Story. Where she, as usual, glows.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Mon, 24 May 2004 21:37:57 -0800

wkw rocks. can't wait for 2046.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 24 May 2004 23:29:56 -0800

can't wait for 2046. Well, its still 42 years away. Err... wait... I'm tired.

By: of strange foe

of strange foe — Tue, 25 May 2004 08:16:58 -0800

I first fell in love with WkW in high school, after watching A Fei Zheng Zhuan (1991), featuring the late and much lamented Leslie Cheung and a very young Maggie Cheung. Maggie's role in that movie is named 'Su Lizhen' as well, which would make 'A Fei', 'In the Mood' and this '2046' a sort of trilogy. Too bad they probably won't ever release 'A Fei' in the states. Can't wait!

By: dorian

dorian — Tue, 25 May 2004 09:22:45 -0800

I think it already was a sort-of-trilogy: as tears go by, 'days of being wild', and then 'in the mood for love'. so now it's a sort-of-tetralogy...? you can probably chance upon local theatres (e.g. the brattle, the angelika, etc.) showing them every once in a while. but at least they have been out on region-0 dvd for a while now, and with decent video transfers no less.

By: of strange foe

of strange foe — Tue, 25 May 2004 12:51:45 -0800

Oh right. I seem to recall Maggie Cheung had her breakout role in 'As Tears Go By' and started being regarded as a serious actress.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Tue, 25 May 2004 18:14:30 -0800

the onion had a nice interview with him about how difficult it was to shoot :D "...at one point, we were shooting both films back-to-back at the same time, which became extremely difficult, because the other story takes place 50 years into the future. It was like falling in love with two different people at the same time. After we finished part of 2046, we started the production of In The Mood For Love again in Bangkok, because in the process of shooting part of 2046 in Bangkok, we saw some things that would be extremely good for In The Mood For Love. So we eventually moved it there. It was very chaotic. Somehow, we spent 15 months on these films." wow!

By: matteo

matteo — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 12:37:03 -0800

for archival purposes, good story in the Village Voice: Maybe, finally, Wong has learned his lesson. Dividing the critics and ignored by the jury, Wong might work more practically in the future. (Next: a more structured film about Bruce Lee with Leung, but also a follow-up to 2046 focusing on Gong Li's one-gloved gambler.) This need for change provides 2046's intriguing subtext. "I realized I was making a film about myself, about our process of making films! This film concludes all of my previous work. It's like a reunion of all the past moments. We tried for something different, but the past kept coming back."