(08.31.07)
i don’t know what to say to everyone and make you feel any differently about the current perception you probably have formed already about wong kar-wai’s recent output, being redundant since in the mood for love. all i can do is speculate on wkw’s intentions with there’s only one sun, his new short commissioned by philips electronics. it’s possible philips electronics liked what they saw in 2046’s futuristic section and wkw’s musical choices (connie francis’ siboney and umebayahsi’s long journey) and wanted a generous helping of straight pastiche for their extended commercial. i know when i ask for sketches from my fave cartoonists that i expect them to replicate an image, which is iconic/representative of their drawing style for my request. or maybe wkw felt the futuristic section of 2046 was still novel or went unnoticed or underappreciated the last time around and borrowed it for this occassion without reservations. wkw’s practice is to reappropriate visuals and themes from his previous work by squeezing every last drop of usefulness out of them (i.e. 2046, the hand, in the mood for love and days of being wild) before finally moving on to something that looks superficially different from what he and william chang (wkw’s long-time collaborator in production design, costume design and editing—who is absolutely essential and responsible for a lot of the magic in wkw’s work) have already done. hopefully, wkw will not reference my blueberry nights, especially from lawerence block’s reportedly wooden dialogue, for the lady from shanghai or for any future work for that matter. by the way, wkw and william chang’s new muse for this piece appears to be louise brooks made up to be an assassin uniformed in couture, played by amélie daure as agent 006 of the central authorities.
i was taken aback how much this new piece looks like 2046 shot for shot, but it also has a vibe like jean-luc godard’s alphaville to it. and i’m not quite sure where the russian elements come from and why the use of it, especially wkw’s intent of having “the light” (and the senior agent) speak to agent 006 in russian while she replies to him in french plus the russian epigram placed at the end. for a piece done in shorthand, as far as concocting the scenario and plot, wkw made a fine effort disguising how contrived the whole affair is. plus, wkw did an admirable job of conveying all of the details/info of the characters and locale by embedding them into the images and tone/mood of the narrative, which has been his forte throughout his career. and i think the earnestness of the casts’ performance and wkw’s direction is the finishing touch, so the whole situation doesn’t end up being so laughable.
craftsmanship-wise, i think this piece is well done. (wkw’s and william chang’s efforts nowadays manifests itself into very highly stylized execution, i.e. the lancôme commercial with clive owen.) william chang’s fingerprints are all over this thing from the editing technique (especially his fetish jump cuts cued to movement or incorporating retakes) right down to the production/costume design. wkw’s preoccupation with memory, the flashback story structure, which the viewer is whisked off to and away from the story’s present as the plot begins, and the characters not being physically together by the end of it all. anyways, wkw romanticizes the memory of a person, or at least, for this particular piece, the visual representation of that person through a flat screen tv (nice touch by wkw to make the television a key element in the story but showing it to the viewer only twice even though it’s the whole reason for him being commissioned to make this piece… his private in-joke that he got away with possibly?).
in addition, memory induces a feeling (i get the impression wkw and his characters are addicted to living in their heads and see personal memories as a fetish more alluring than reality since imagery in wkw’s eyes is a type of narcotic, according to david thomson). in wkw’s worldview, there’s no need for agent 006 and “the light” to actually run off and have a real life together, i.e. no happy ending for us since wkw is really a cold hearted intellectual french dude! but it’s a happy ending for agent 006, who prefers the memory (since she is now blind, she has no other possibility to see images besides her memory… another deft touch by wkw to write that into her character and a plausible means to advance his thematic preoccupation with memory plus hinting at having agent 006’s superiors remove her memories, the last refuge for indvidual freedom and privacy, is a very disturbing personal violation) of seeing “the light”’s younger image on a flat screen tv and its accompanying feeling than actually being with him. it was clever how agent 006 rationalized/imagined that “the light” would betray her, motivating herself to follow thru and assassinate him, thus carrying out her assignment even though she had fallen for him. or did she actually fall in love with him? wkw nicely leaves that open to the viewer’s interpretation.
from my initial viewing of it, it didn’t resonate for me all that much. by writing about it, the philips piece is growing on me. kinda like how wkw’s the follow for bmw was underwhelming for me at first and seemed like a pastiche of iconic shots from chungking express and fallen angels before i grew to like it very much. for what it’s worth… at least, wkw and william chang seemed to have made this piece according to their vision rather than conforming their style to constraining directives from the philips corporate office, which might have rendered this piece unrecognizable to their fans. predictably, wkw and william chang are just being themselves to the point of extreme self-parody, but in a really well-done and enjoyable way even though we have seen this stuff before. and yes, it seems wkw has lost his humor since chungking express and fallen angels, or at least he keeps it somewhere where it’s not readily handy. i don’t think the heavy-handed dourness is going to disappear from wkw’s work any time soon either. i give wkw and william chang a pass on this one since it’s a commissioned commercial piece.
i will be a lot less forgiving of wkw if my blueberry nights sucks though. and most especially if he messes up ashes of time’s new re-edit!
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