early spring 2012 series

There’s something about a Wong Kar-wai film that stays with you; it’s different for everyone. This spring, Cornell Cinema welcomes you to discover what that something might be for you. Whether it’s Leslie Leung’s tape recorded message in Happy Together (1997), Faye Wong’s bubbly romp through an unsuspecting cop’s apartment in Chungking Express (1994), or the enigmatic whisper that concludes In the Mood for Love (2000), you’re sure to find a keepsake or two somewhere along the miles of celluloid the Hong Kong director has so colorfully painted. In the latter film especially, we see an artist comfortable enough in his own skin to shed it in favor of unexpected restraint and delicate inner turmoil. In this respect, In the Mood for Love is a solitary film in more ways than one: unique in the director’s hyperkinetic oeuvre and smacking of beautiful isolation. For a filmmaker whose palette so often cries out to us wildly, thanks in no small part to right-hand cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Wong is nothing if not about mood. Through a careful puzzle of sounds, tastes, and textures, he brings his narratives together like explosions in reverse.

Enter 1991’s Days of Being Wild. A game changer both for him and for the cinematic world at large, it is also an exercise in mundane reflection through the eyes of a generation who abides by the director’s three Fs: fast, free, and forlorn. Working the same sort of alchemy is Chungking Express, a diptych of unrequited relationships and opportunities. In addition to sporting some of the most well drawn characters—to say nothing of the fine performances thereof—in the Wong universe, it is where many get their introductory glimpse. Fallen Angels (1995), originally intended as a third to Chungking’s two tales, pulls the frays further through the eyes of a hitman as he attempts to tie loose ends amid the tangle of an uncertain future. The most recent film to make it into this line-up is 2046 (2005), a no less than fascinating pastiche of sci-fi and Japanese manga influences that continues where Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love left off. Arguably, however, Wong’s crowning achievement may just be Happy Together, a crackling mosaic that shows him at his most unabashed insightful, voyeuristic, and honest, and which won him Best Director at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

If you’ve ever traveled somewhere distant, you’ve likely had the experience of returning with a suitcase much fuller than when you left. Seeing a Wong Kar-wai film is the theatergoing equivalent, and you’ll be glad you made the journey.

Cosponsored with the Hong Kong Student Association.