Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 01:27:35 -0400
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: 2046?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Ernest Lilley wrote:

>  Ted,
>
>  Tell me about 2046. Sounds interesting.

It's currently playing at the Cinema Arts.   The movie is by
Wong Kar Wai, and is a sequel of sorts to his earlier IN THE MOOD FOR
LOVE (which I haven't seen).  It is set in China in the late '60s, and
revolves around a newspaperman, played by Tony Leung, who writes skiffy
on the side.  He has had success with a story called "2046," and, by a
series of coincidences, ends up living in a hotel room across from room
2046.

The movie tells a group of related stories.  One is about the hooker who
lives in room 2046.  Another concerns the landlord's daughter, who has
fallen for a Japanese man; her father is Strongly Prejudiced against the
Japanese.  Tony writes "2047" for the daughter, creating a metaphor
concerning the androids on the train to (and from) 2046, with whom the
protagonist falls in love.

Parts of the movie take place in the story, "2046," and we watch
him write (and we go into) its sequel, "2047," but most of the movie
deals with Leung's relationships with several beautiful Chinese women.
The movie has a very "French" attitude toward
relationships, and is told eliptically, in a spiral which brings us
eventually to its emotional core.

I've heard that the skiffy sequence ("2047") was shot first, maybe for
TV, and the rest of the movie was built around it.

It is the antithesis of SERENITY.

--Ted White