I have an admission to make. My relationship with Wong Kar-Wai films is not one of slavish devotion. Both In The Mood For Love and now 2046 were slow starters for me. I love them both, but in both cases I was half asleep for the first hour. I am suggesting though that far for this being a bad thing, this may well be the best way to view these films. Pressure cookers of emotion, it is difficult to keep up the required concentration on these melodramas for their full running time. Rather I have a vague impressionistic idea of what happened in the Zhang Ziyi segment to suddenly have my attention completely arrested by the second half.
I am increasingly finding Christopher Doyle’s photography insipidly perfect. I am not saying that his compositions alone put me to sleep, because Wong himself contributes with his slow story and lush orchestrations. The all-of-a-sudden seeming self reflexive tedium crystallising into something so fascinating is remarkable (Lynn Ramsey’s Ratcatcher had much the same effect on me). The first hour is something about jilted Tony Leung’s odd relationship with small time prostitute Zhang Ziyi. For a meditation on mood, love and loss, perhaps this loose collection of impressions between the odd nod off is appropriate: as the film itself shifts between its core emotions.
The sci-fi bits are bobbins though.