The Banquet
2046 Review - Variety, May 2004
by Derek Elley
Both yeasayers and naysayers of cult hit “In the Mood for Love” share at
least two good reasons to check out its long-in-the-works companion piece,
“2046.” Mainland actress Zhang Ziyi proves she’s a star of major range and
luminosity (especially on the heels of Zhang Yimou’s martial artser “House
of Flying Daggers"), while Hong Kong leading man Tony Leung Chiu-wai carries
the pic with the charm of a young Clark Gable. Suffused with much the
same retro languor and visual style as “Mood” but considerably more
substantial in content and genuine emotion, “2046? is still of niche appeal
but could rack up fractionally more returns on its star power alone.
The 123-minute version unspooled in Cannes’ competition is likely to differ
from what finally reaches Asian and European theaters this fall (a U.S.
distrib deal has yet to be finalized). Some skeletal B&W CGI work depicting
a futuristic city looks still to be colorized and the soundtrack finessed
(though at screening caught there were no startling flaws).
Pic would benefit from about 10 minutes of trims in its final reels, and
Wong, a notoriously indecisive fiddler, is sure to take a more considered
look at the movie following its mixed-to-positive reception. For the record,
“2046? set a new Cannes record for last-minute arrival in competition: After
missing two daytime slots, six reels arrived only three hours before its
black-tie evening screening, and the remainder only a half-hour prior.
If “Mood” was an over-elaborate hors d’oeuvre, with repeated variations
around one couple’s affair in ’60s Hong Kong, “2046? is more like the main
course, a visually seductive reverie on memory and regret refracted through
a serial womanizer’s experiences with four different women during the same
period. Arthouse fans of “Mood” will need no urging to see this second
helping; doubters will be rewarded by a much more substantial and varied
meal.
In a typical piece of neo-Godardian playfulness, title has a both a concrete
and less concrete meaning – the number of the hotel room in which the
couple in “Mood” conducted their extra-marital affair as well as the date of
Hong Kong’s final integration into China (after 50 years of being a “special
administrative region” following Brit rule).
To a richly scored romantic soundtrack, pic opens in the year 2046, when a
vast train network is meant to span the world. “Every now and then a train
leaves for 2046,” says the Japanese voice of Tak (TV drama star Takuya
Kimura (news)), “but no one ever comes back – except me.” Cut to Tak and
his lover, silent femme-bot wjw 1967 (singer-actress Faye Wong (news)), whom
he’s trying to convince to return with him. She says nothing, so he exits
alone.
Cut to Singapore, 1966. The lead from “Mood,” Chow Mo-wan (Leung, encoring),
is trying to persuade his lover, Su Lizhen (Gong Li, almost unrecognizable
in scarlet lipstick and beehive period hairdo), to leave with him on a boat
to Hong Kong. She demurs, too, and Chow leaves alone.
By now the movie has shifted into a recognizably “Mood” mode – dark,
burnished lensing of interiors (oranges, yellows and moldy greens
prominent); choice musical accompaniment (from Bellini’s “Casta diva” aria,
through Latino rhythms, to cocktail lounge songs like Nat “King” Cole’s “The
Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)"); most of the action shot in
medium-closeup with a shallow depth of field. As Chow moves from being a
struggling pulp writer to a professional gigolo, pic basically follows him
through three further liaisons, all intro’ed on Dec. 24, between 1966 to
1969. The women all lodge in room 2046, with Chow residing in 2047.
First up is goodtime girl Lulu (Carina Lau, in little more than a cameo);
that brief affair is cut short by her murder. Next comes the more spacey
Wang Jingwen (Wong again), elder daughter of the hotel’s owner (Wang Sum).
She’s in love with a Japanese guy whom her father disapproves of, and Chow
writes a sci-fi novel ("2046?), inspired by her and her b.f., in which two
lovers flee to the future.
Just when “2046" looks to turn into an overly convoluted rerun of “Mood,”
story switches to the last of Chow’s amours, an all-business, upmarket
hooker from mainland China called Bai Ling (Zhang). In a 25-minute section,
with a slightly more conventional look that’s like a mini-feature of its
own, Chow and Bai become drinking pals, bosom buddies and finally lovers,
leaving her heartbroken, him bruised, but both pretending otherwise. It’s
the subtlest, most emotionally engaging part of the movie, bringing
substance to the whole conceit, with Leung and, especially, Zhang both aces.
Last 50 minutes is in the form of an elaborate
development-cum-recapitulation, as Wang returns to the story, she and Chow
are shown having an affair, and the latter’s novel is visually excerpted,
with the opening sequence of the whole picture now starting to make sense.
But as other characters are reintroduced (Bai, then Su), film slowly starts
to repeat itself for diminishing returns, with even Cole’s “Christmas Song”
losing its freshness. Structure of this whole section, and especially the
final 15 minutes, needs a serious second look by the director.
Though the whole futuristic idea never really gels, it does, however, make
final sense. Pic’s theme is very simple: the impossibility of returning to
the past ("Why can’t it be like before?” says Bai) and employing wisdom in
retrospect. That’s why nobody returns on the 2046 train.
Tech credits are fractionally less sumptuous than on “Mood,” though the
re-creation by production designer William Chang of ’60s Asia and his
costuming (men’s suits, women’s tight-fitting cheongsams) is actually more
realistic than purely design conscious. One conceit may escape non-Chinese
speakers but brings a strange linguistic perversity to the movie – Leung
and Wong speak only Cantonese, while Zhang and Gong speak only Mandarin, two
almost mutually unintelligible dialects which no one blinks an eyelid at.
For the record, Maggie Cheung (news), who played Chow’s lover in “Mood” and
was originally to have reprised the role here, is billed as making a
“special appearance,” one so fleeting that it totally escaped Cannes
viewers. In fact, she’s only in the movie for a couple of seconds, as a
woman rolling on a bed lensed from overhead. Gong’s character has the same
name as Cheung’s in the previous movie, and at one point Chow, in a simple
way round last-minute recasting, tells her: “I once knew a woman with the
same name as yours.”
Camera (Duboi color, widescreen), Christopher Doyle, Lai Yiu-fai, Kwan
Pun-leung; editor, William Chang; original music, Peer Raben, Shigeru
Umebayashi; production/costume designer, Chang; art director, Alfred Yau;
sound (Dolby Digital), Claude Letessier, Tu Duu-chih; special effects, BUF.
Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites) (competing), May 20,
2004. Running time: 123 MIN.(Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese dialogue.)