In my
review, I said that this film doesn’t quite work for me, and I also said I
don’t know why. Even though, on paper,
it has what appears to be all the usual hallmarks of Wong Kar-wai’s work and
ought to add up to his usual sensuous beauty, it doesn’t. I still don’t know what it is that causes the film to feel off (as I’ve
said, I think it must be more than just the fact that it’s in English,) but I
want to try and articulate how that offness manifests itself within the film.
The
best way I can describe it? It feels
like Wong Kar-wai Does Hollywood, or possibly Hollywood Does Wong Kar-wai. Typically for me, Wong’s movies feel so real.
The casual dialogue and seeming aimlessness has such an unstudied
quality to it, and the colors, camera angles, and music fill me so much that I
feel immersed in the characters’ world, like I’m almost swimming through
it. The gentle connections, the pregnant
pauses, the opportunities that slip just
out of reach – it’s all so real.
And
even when it’s not – the poetic voiceovers, the obsessive but beautiful rituals
– it still feels real. Not the way life
is, but like a dream is. These are films
that get me hook, line, and sinker. The
passion overwhelms and the heartache sears.
You can practically feel the summer swelter and smell the cigarette
smoke. Works of life and dream with art
wrapped around it. Whenever I rewatch
them, I’m often so still, because there’s a sort of spell in them; I don’t want
to break it.
That,
for me, is what My Blueberry Nights
is missing. Even though it has the same elements, it doesn’t feel right. Even though the cast includes plenty of
excellent actors, I notice them all acting here, see the strings. Even though Wong follows his conceit of
repeating the same few significant songs multiple times, I barely notice
them. Even though, on the face of it,
knowing the stories of all the breakups behind the jar of discarded keys in
your café is no stranger than deciding you’re moving on from your ex on a
certain date and collecting cans of pineapple with that expiration date, it
doesn’t feel genuine with Jeremy the way it does with Cop 223. Everything feels a little removed, a little
artificial.
It’s
true that Wong’s filmmaking process is very fluid and unique, and it takes a
certain type of actor to be able to work that way. Is it just that these American and English
actors can’t adjust to the improvised way he builds his stories from the ground
up? Possible, but I’m not sure. After all, there are actors who’ve only been
in a single Wong film, like Leon Lai and Michelle Reis in Fallen Angels, who’ve done just fine, and while Ziyi Zhang was a
latecomer to Wong, she’s stellar in both 2046
and The Grandmaster. If the Chinese actors can learn to work that
way, why not the Brits and Americans?
In all
honesty, the film is fine. If it weren’t
a Wong movie, I might not have been so bothered by the way it holds you at arms
length. But it is, and I know all the
stunning beauty and romance he’s capable of, and so I’m sad for what it might
have been.
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