2046

I would have no idea what to make of 2046 had it not been for its predecessor, In the Mood for Love, a film which casts a large shadow over everything that takes place in 2046. The first movie -- which is really the second in the series that started with Days of Being Wild, though that one is of lesser importance -- tells the story of two neighbors who discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. They find this out together, and their spouses become the first topic of many conversations. The infidelity that brings them together, however, also keeps them apart, for consummating the love that so clearly exists between the two would also mean that they would be no better than their cheating partners. In the end, they part, but the way Wong Kar-wai concludes the film suggests the possibility of a brighter future.

In the Mood for Love

Fast-forward to 2046. In the film, this is both a year and a heavenly destination where those seeking love go, by train, never to return. Once you give yourself over to that boundless love, to that mysterious, unknown place that is 2046, you can never go back. 2046 is a fantasy, a dream that lives in the mind of Mr.Chow, the protagonist of both this film and In the Mood for Love, a writer living in 1960s Hong Kong who created this magical story world, like so many artists, to confront his demons and obsessions. In his mythology, the only person who has ever returned from 2046 is a character shaped after himself. This character seems to suffer from some physical ailment, but whatever he experienced in 2046, he keeps to himself. 

2046

Bittersweet, is the word that keeps coming to mind. The sweet, ecstatic love of In the Mood for Love has been replaced by the bitter aftertaste of regret. In 2046, Chow has become a broken shell of a man, incapable of overcoming his past, his one true love. He uses and abuses the women of his life -- ironically the occupants of the neighboring room 2046 of the hotel in which he lives -- whom he desperately wishes would fill the emotional space that Su Li-zhen still dominates, just as they fill the physical space that used to contain her. 

Zhang Ziyi

The secret of his love for Su Li-zhen, which sadly could not remain buried, haunts him. From what little I had heard of 2046, I thought Wong would tell another epic love story, spanning years and a healthy running time of film. I was expecting Wong to outdo himself, and to provide me yet another In the Mood for Love. I was disappointed and shocked (I'm still quite stunned, actually), not because 2046 is any less great, but because it was the antithesis of what I had expected. Instead of retelling the greatest love story ever told, Wong went out and made a film about the misery of a man living without love, and the damage that his lovelessness causes not only to himself, but to those around him. 

It was a brutally painful experience (quite similar to the shock of watching Before Midnight), particularly since it is the extremely likable and charming Tony Leung playing Mr. Chow once more. Could this cruel being really be the same man who glanced longingly, caressingly across the crowded stairwell at his forbidden love in In the Mood for Love? It broke my heart. For a while, I thought that Chow might transform himself to find some happiness with the elusive gambler Su Li-zhen -- Gong Li, tantalizingly similar to the first Su Li-zhen, who was played by Maggie Cheung -- or perhaps with the impassioned Bai Ling -- the ethereal Zhang Ziyi, playing a woman as world-weary as Chow, yet more willing to open herself up to a true, loving relationship with him. 

These beautiful, beautiful women -- has anyone else photographed the fairer sex with such delicacy as Wong Kar-wai? -- practically throw themselves at him. With their patience, grace, and beauty, they offer up salvation from his misery, but not without a cost. In return, they ask for his love and devotion, something Chow thinks himself incapable of giving. I guess "the first cut is the deepest," if Cat Stevens is to be believed, and the cut left by the unfulfilled love of Maggie Cheung's Su Li-zhen never fully healed, leaving Chow scarred for life, or at least for now. 

Gong Li

So, instead of throwing himself into love, Chow hides himself in his stories. The fantastic world he creates for himself, as brought to life by Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, truly is something to behold. His future consists solely of ghostlike buildings made from pure light and color, and intersected by ever accelerating bullet trains with no apparent stops or destination. Inside one of these trains, android goddesses, bearing uncanny appearances to the women of Chow’s life, tend to the needs of the worn out hero, the only occupant on the train apart from a mysterious figure that warns him not to fall in love with any of the androids he meets. The minimalistic, hypermodern interiors of the train, intended to symbolize Mr. Chow’s distressed state of mind, convey the most unbearable loneliness. 

I'd like to believe that Chow can find love again. It is too painful to see that last shot of him alone in that cab, photographed in black and white, a sad mirror of that unforgettable ride so many years ago when he first experienced true love, and believe that his story ends there. The end of this movie should instantly loop back to that of "In the Mood for Love," in which the secret of a forbidden love is laid to rest, but the possibility of rekindling it is never fully extinguished. Then again, perhaps Mr. Chow has learned an even more valuable lesson than the need to hold on to love once you find it. " ‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.” Maybe the next time he finds love, he will be ready to reciprocate, and then he can have his happy ending. 

Verdict- 4/4
2046 (2004) 2h 10min. R. 

Random Thoughts
- Alfred Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H" commonly referred to as, " 'Tis better to have loved and lost..." can be found here, in full: http://www.online-literature.com/donne/718/