HONG KONG AND IMPOSSIBLE LOVE, THERE IS NO GOING BACK FROM THE FUTURE (WONG KAR-WAI) FOUR CONNECTED FILMS, WITH AN ORIENTAL FLAVOR BUT NOT TOO MUCH
The title connects four films by Wong Kar-Wai, a director born in Shanghai in 1958 but raised in Hong Kong. These are Days of being wild (1991), Hong Kong Express (1994), In the mood for love (2000) and 2046< 2> (presented at Cannes in 2004). Some actors are present in at least two of the four films, the protagonist (Tony Leung) is present in all four. The situations change, but the underlying note is the same.
In Days of being wild the search for love is disturbed by the psychological situation of the protagonist, in search of his true mother having discovered of having been adopted, and by his inability to think about a stable emotional union.
In the mood for love, compact and coherent, the two main characters realize that they are most likely linked by the fact that their respective spouses are lovers. Even between them, sympathy arises and then love, but not consummated. When passion would like to go further, they no longer meet, because in the meantime life has taken them elsewhere.
Hong Kong Express represents the glimpse of the life of two policemen: the first aims to a girl who is unlikely to be found, another girl takes a liking to the second policeman who, distracted by many things, will realize too late (or not?) of a possible love.
2046 is a complex film: we find the protagonist of In the mood for love who is still looking for the woman he lost years before. He is now a writer busy completing a science fiction story, with the same title as the film, who finds shreds of love in room 2046, next to him. The film features some sequences from the science fiction story, in which those who reach their destination (coincidentally, the year 2046) are usually unable to go back. A long, endless and impressive journey awaits the only man who is managing to return to the past. Where he won't find what he's looking for.
It must be said that the events of these films cannot always be followed to the end. Beyond what the spectator understands, what matters is not the reason, but the atmosphere, the message and the feeling.
Two elements play an essential role: the soundtrack and the scenography. The first repeats successful motifs from the years in which the stories are set, together with lyrical and operatic arias consistent with the scenes. They are scrupulously detailed even when the viewer's view is concentrated in a narrow space of the screen because the rest is in shadow. All this gives the whole a romantic-decadent tone, intrinsically linked to the idea that there is no turning back from the future. In the interiors, perfect cleanliness and order is rare, reality is more confused than what appears, the characters' expressions are sometimes rendered with their hands and feet. They too speak in their own way. In the external shots the sun is rare, the rain so often present makes life even more difficult for those seeking love and clarity.
Difficult Loves are set largely in Hong Kong, a complex and international, from which we often travel to Asia, especially to Singapore, more rarely to the Philippines or Cambodia. However, you cannot see the city, you understand that those who live there alternate their work with economic difficulties, often in a shortage of housing, in search of something that escapes them. Including the meaning of what you do and where you go. Including the fact that in 2047 Hong Kong will be completely Chinese. The 1997 treaty with the United Kingdom assigns fifty years for the return of the former English colony to the motherland. In this sense, nothing will certainly be the same as before.
We confuse the names of the characters because we are not used to the recurrence of such short and similar names, and we often confuse their faces, which are often also very similar. Besides that, what is Chinese about these films? Above all the expression of feelings, so contained, especially in men. The unsaid, often revealed by the face, which even in the smallest movement of the eyes or lips can reveal, albeit a little, what is in the depths of the soul, our secrets. Because, if you have, you can do as recommended in two of these films: make a hole in a tree and say in it what you don't want anyone else to know. Afterwards, close well.
These Wong Kar-Wai films and more can be streamed on Wymovies.