Orange Orange

Saw this film on the recommendation of a friend. It appears to have garnered a large amount of international praise, especially at Cannes and among art-house critics. A reviewer–is Yoda a film critic?–on the IMDB website cautions: “Easily misunderstood or confusing, it can be,” before lauding 2046 as providing “radical new ways of vicariously experiencing time and place.”

I can’t decide if that statement is insightful or meaningless, and I feel the same way about the film. It seems that Wong Kar Wai (the director) has drawn upon every single indie-turned-mainstream device he could think of to disguise and dismember elements of basic Chinese melodrama. There’s nothing wrong with melodrama — just see the brilliant and subtle films of Yasujiro Ozu. Here, however, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that obscure, fragmented, pretentious kitsch is still kitsch. Kitsch because Wong seems mainly concerned with throwing out a bunch of really easily recognized motifs. Did you know that a shot of a quivering face with the single tear down the side is the international symbol for sadness? The soundtrack has a similar effect: incessant repetition of folk/pop melodies whenever a romantic cue is needed. There are plenty of sentimental, hummable favorites, including a ubiquitous Bellini Aria (”Casta Diva“), the Mexican pop melody “Perfidia,” and what seems like a strange Asian adaptation of “Autumn Leaves.” Occasionally I can see the themes of love and betrayal trying to weave their way through the music, but I still can’t help but feel that I’m at a ballroom dance party with a bunch of middle-aged immigrants in Chinatown.

I did like the movie though. There’s plenty of eloquent bullshit among critics praising Wong for the “universal” and “empathetic” treatments of romance, but I found the film even more interesting when placed in a little cultural context. For anyone who has watched the sappy melodramas on the state-sponsored Chinese networks, Wong’s film presents some very familiar motifs in a striking new context. What happens when the capricious, almost silly caricatures of human emotion from a soap opera are brought to the big screen and treated to the caustic finish of a post-modern (and dare I say Western) aesthetic? I don’t see the result as a fundamentally new cultural perspective, but definitely one worth pondering. Consider the stylish cinematography and the excessive yet masterfully executed indie film tricks a little eye-candy on the side.

On a completely unrelated note, I never knew that ’shrooms are unaddictive and harmless. That is, if we don’t count injury when you’re hallucinating, or the fact that you might get arrested.

Links: IMDB page of 2046 (Pronounced “two-oh-four-six”). Original Soundtrack at Amazon. Reviews by the Telegraph and the Bright Lights Film Journal.