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Wong Kar-Wai has done me wrong...
The Trip
A love-lorn writer, who has turned lothario, recounts how his money-spinning Sci-Fi books draw on the people who have passed him by in the night. And how no-one returns from the destination towards which his narrative unceasingly flies.
The Fare
Set in the familiar care-worn '60s Hong Kong of In the Mood for Love, this sequel-of-sorts extends the theme of unrequited love - and doesn't really take it anywhere new. In fact, it runs into a disappointing dead end.
Despite the expected rhapsodies of sensuous cinematography and finely portrayed frailty, it's a shame that Kar-Wai felt the need to run the same theme into the ground. Whereas Mood could be seen as a 'carpe diem' warning, this repitition becomes a fatalistic, backward-looking insistence on love being a one-shot thing.
The central relationship between Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang is still engaging (despite her adoration for him being a touch perplexing), - as are all of the backstories - and the futuristic explorations too. What doesn't work is layering on the 'love'-conquests of a lothario who insists that his life stopped a long time before - and who infers that all he wants is to turn time on its head. Hey - don't we all - but there's no need to make a film about lying languidly in the bed that you've made.
- coz it does still have a classy click of recognition going on.
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Wong Kar-Wai has done me wrong...
The Trip
A love-lorn writer, who has turned lothario, recounts how his money-spinning Sci-Fi books draw on the people who have passed him by in the night. And how no-one returns from the destination towards which his narrative unceasingly flies.
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Set in the familiar care-worn '60s Hong Kong of In the Mood for Love, this sequel-of-sorts extends the theme of unrequited love - and doesn't really take it anywhere new. In fact, it runs into a disappointing dead end.
Despite the expected rhapsodies of sensuous cinematography and finely portrayed frailty, it's a shame that Kar-Wai felt the need to run the same theme into the ground. Whereas Mood could be seen as a 'carpe diem' warning, this repitition becomes a fatalistic, backward-looking insistence on love being a one-shot thing.
The central relationship between Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang is still engaging (despite her adoration for him being a touch perplexing), - as are all of the backstories - and the futuristic explorations too. What doesn't work is layering on the 'love'-conquests of a lothario who insists that his life stopped a long time before - and who infers that all he wants is to turn time on its head. Hey - don't we all - but there's no need to make a film about lying languidly in the bed that you've made.
- coz it does still have a classy click of recognition going on.