2046 (China/France/Germany/Hong Kong) (Sony Pictures Classics) (2004) ****Year: 2004iMDB
Director: Wong Kar Wai Cast: Tony Leung, Li Gong, Takuya Kimura, Ziyi Zhang, Maggie Cheung
Wong Kar Wai's style is not for everyone. Deliberate, with a story that unfolds so slowly that some may feel they're watching grass grow, his movies have an amazing attention to photographic detail, beautiful music matching every important moment, and subtle stories about feelings, love, loss that transcend the characters.
2046 is the sequel to the acclaimed In the Mood for Love and for many it does not raise quite at the same hight as the predecessor. Perhaps partly true, partly due to the immense expectations for this movie that took five years in the making, appropriately the print arriving late even for its Cannes Festival premiere.
Filmed, like all Kar-Wai's movies, without a script, the actors never knowing what awaits them in the next scene, the story follows Chow's character as he tries to get over his previous love through writing, while moving on with his life and finding new feelings. However, love is all about timing and for him it's right person, right place, wrong time.
There are so many messages and metaphors in 2046 that a mini-review cannot do it justice. Perhaps I will revisit it one day, after rewatching it. Until then though, if you're in the mood for love, for meditating about life, love and hazard, take 2 hours and let yourself travel to 2046, the place where people go to embrace their memories but noone comes back to tell the story.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on November 12, 2005 08:50 AM