A Little
TLC(w) addition to my Happy Together
review: “Recommend? In General
– Yes. It takes its time and it wanders
a little, but I’d say it’s rewarding. Tony
Leung Chiu-wai – Yes again. Lovely,
subtle work here, and it’s probably one of the least – I don’t know,
self-aware? – instances I’ve seen of a straight actor playing a gay
character. There’s never an air of ‘Tony
Leung Chiu-wai Plays Gay!!’ about it.”
This was the latest of Leung’s many collaborations with Wong Kar-wai
that I rewatched, and it’s still just as beautiful as the first time (a few
spoilers.)
Leung has
played a lot of messed-up people for Wong, mainly guys who’ve been kicked
around by love in one way or another, but I think Fai might be the most
messed-up of all. He can be aching to
watch, because you can see that he’s a decent, basically-normal guy who’s had
his head done in by his relationship with Ho Po-wing. It’s especially sad because even he knows that Po-wing is no good for
him, but every time his ex-boyfriend asks to “start over,” Fai is a goner. In the period of their relationship the story
centers on, Fai tries to actively resist falling for Po-wing again – he’s
almost physically brittle when Po-wing tries to be affectionate with him, and
he throws up walls at every turn. But
even then, despite what have to be Fai’s best efforts, Po-wing slips back into
Fai’s life and starts working his way back into Fai’s heart.
And it is
not a healthy relationship to be in –
for either of them, really. Fai gets
spun around by Po-wing’s manipulation and sucked into the upheaval of his life,
but it’s not just Fai getting dumped on by the lover he can’t quit. Fai’s own feelings for Po-wing mess him up
but good, and he does some objectively-crappy stuff for fear of losing
him. In a way, Fai is two different
people with and without Po-wing, because when Fai is with him, he only becomes
what they do to each other when they’re together. When they’re apart, even with Po-wing’s shadow
still haunting the apartment, we see a different Fai.
I don’t
think there are many actors who can quietly break my heart as well as Tony
Leung Chiu-wai can, as he’s demonstrated to me numerous times, and this film is
a prime example. Nearly everything about
Fai is tragic to me. Being stuck in
Argentina, his “holiday” long over but unable to afford his way home. Trying to resist Po-wing, falling for him
anyway, and hating himself for it. Feeling
his affections getting toxic and doing bad things to try and keep his lover
(tragic but not perfect – I like that Fai has some sizable flaws. His culpability in his situation and his own
sketchy decisions don’t make what he’s going through any less sad.) Growing close to Chang but still keeping
himself just as arm’s length.
Here, the
crowning heartbreak moment is the “tape recorder” scene. It just about knocked me off my feet the
first time I saw it. Such rawness and
vulnerability, so much letting go for a character who’s often all about burying
his feelings, but it’s still such a gentle scene. In this moment, without words and only seeing
about half of his face, we see a man break wide open. This time around, an A.E. Housman poem came
to mind: “He would not stay for me, and
who can wonder? / He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. / I shook his
hand, and tore my heart in sunder, / And went with half my life about my
ways.” What goes on between Fai and
Chang is very quiet and understated, and it’s hard to say exactly what Fai feels
for Chang, but whether his affection is love or friendship, the emotion of it, what we see in the scene,
is what I think we find in the poem.
Just stunning work.
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