Info from Tony Rayns review in Time Out... (He must know!)..
Happy Together
Review
Under the Chinese title used for Antonioni's Blow-Up (it connotes the exposure of something indecent), Wong Kar-Wai and cameraman Chris Doyle have crafted their most lyrical film. The romance between two gay men from Hong Kong ends soon after they arrive in Argentina. Lai (Leung) gets a job as a doorman at a Buenos Aires tango bar and starts saving for his ticket home. Ho (Cheung) turns tricks for fun and profit, but comes running back to Lai for comfort when one of his clients leaves him bruised and bleeding. Lai befriends - and somehow draws emotional strength from - a Taiwanese kid on his way south to 'the end of the world'. The three main characters give Wong all he needs for a piercing meditation on the meaning of partings, reunions, and attempts to start over. From afar (Buenos Aires is Hong Kong's antipodes), he crystallises the anxieties and hopes of Hong Kong people on the eve of the return to China. TR
Also verified by Stephen Teo in BFI book on WKW... WKW wanted to use the Chinese title 'Chunguang Zhaxie' (roughly ' Outburst of Spring Light'), which he discovered was the title given to Antonioni's Blow-Up for its Hong Kong release... Struck by the coincidence he decided to use the Chinese title: " I feel that everying is connected by fate, and film is also like that". English version used, Happy Together...
WKW & Antonioni also then collaborated on Eros (2005)....
Last edited by ellipsis7 on Wed May 16, 2007 3:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Forgot to mention also , another part of the coincidence and connection that struck WKW is that Antonioni's Blow-Up is adapted from a short story by the Argentinean writer Julio Cortazar....
Dir: Wong Kar Wai. 2007. US. 111mins
Life is as plaintive and banal as a country western ballad in My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar Wai's English-language debut may have all the trappings of an American road movie but at the core it is a characteristically dreamy exploration of love, loss and the sad ache of the broken-hearted.
Retaining the languor but stripped of the exoticism that helped to attract an art-house audience to In The Mood For Love or Happy Together, it winds up feeling much less special and even veers towards the mundane.
Striking moments and strong performances, especially from David Strathairn, are the compensations in a film that is likely to receive a decidedly cool critical reception. Wong Kar Wai aficionados will consider it a disappointment that almost feels like a greatest hits revisited project.
The American settings and star names may help nudge the film more towards the mainstream and create a modest international audience among incurable romantics although they will need to be possessed of a patient nature. It is certainly more approachable and more marketable than 2046.
Songstress Norah Jones makes a respectable acting debut as Elizabeth. Reeling from the end of a five-year relationship, she takes sanctuary in a New York café owned by Englishman Jeremy (Jude Law). He provides her with blueberry pie and a sympathetic ear as they share stories about the meaning of life and their experiences of love, pain and being human. Elizabeth subsequently takes to the road, working as a waitress and barmaid and meeting a number of individuals who prove to have suffered more than her.
The strongest story comes in the mid-section as lovelorn policeman Arnie (David Strathairn) nightly loses himself in alcoholic oblivion to anaesthetise the pain of his terminal estrangement from wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz).
Strathairn brings a typical authority and substance to his role, creating an immensely sympathetic figure and an emotional connection with the audience that is not necessarily achieved by all the characters. There are shades of Thelma And Louise as Elizabeth later hits the road with high-stakes poker player Leslie (Natalie Portman) who takes many more risks at the gaming table than she ever does in life.
All of these encounters seem designed to teach the naïve Elizabeth vital lessons in love and life. Wong Kar Wai frames and presents them in a style that has become his signature. That means blood-red neon, characters who drift into view as they make slow-motion strides through public places and bleak heartache in claustrophobic settings (bars, casinos, restaurants etc) where it is impossible to tell whether it is day or night.
The jangling guitars of the Ry Cooder soundtrack suggest a link to Paris , Texas whilst the glittering neon lights and artificiality of some of the Las Vegas settings suggest Francis Ford Coppola's One From The Heart.
Working in collaboration with crime writer Lawrence Block, Wong Kar Wai has created a screenplay with some wit and charm but those qualities are not enough to overcome the sheer lack of originality in some of the romantic stories. He basically reiterates the moral of all his earlier work: that love makes the world go around and loneliness brings it to a shuddering halt.
Wong Kar Wai does manage to secure some fine performances from the starry cast with Jude Law at his most animated and appealing, even if he does seem to be sporting Sean Bean's accent. Natalie Portman also displays more spirit and conviction than she has brought to recent
projects like Goya's Ghosts. Rachel Weisz brings fire to the role of the seemingly callous wife, even if she seems deliberately to have been recast in the mould of a Gong Li with her figure-hugging dress, wayward hair and air of simmering danger.
Jones seems something of a sulky, colourless presence at the beginning of the film but her passivity serves the story and she appears to grow in confidence and presence throughout the film. Ultimately, fans attracted by her soulful music success are likely to be more satisfied with the film than Wong Kar Wai regulars.
Natalie Portman is fantastic in the film, as is David Strathairn. Norah Jones as expected cannot really act, but the biggest surprise was the trainwreck that is Rachel Weisz. Painful! Jude just needs to exude his charm, and he does.
The Guardian rounds up some responses from the French press:
The film critic of Libération, reviewing the opening film My Blueberry Nights, commented that its director Wong Kar Wai is "becoming less and less Chinese and more and more a citizen of the world... From the beginning to the end, the film spins a metaphor around blueberry pie. We can't exclude the possibility, rather maliciously, that Wong Kar Wai wanted to make his own American Pie... Compared with 2046, Chungking Express and Happy Together, the film is relatively unambitious, even inconsequential. It resembles a sweet dessert, low in calories, but easy to digest. Though not Wong's best film, it is a much better opening film than the two preceding catastrophes of Fanfan La Tulipe and the Da Vinci Code."
Le Figaro saw Wong playing with his favourite themes of "lost love, melancholia, solitude and memories". The newspaper was also taken with the film's "variations on red and blue, the two primary colours that are systematically used throughout. Green makes its appearance only at the end when Elizabeth returns to New York wearing a hat of that colour... There is a striking contrast between the immense desert exteriors and the extremely confined interiors that enclose the characters."
Le Monde thought Wong's venture into "cinematographically tough American territory, maladroit and false".
Also:
Suzukifan wrote:I've never found Norah Jones's songs "bland".
Even though I'm still really looking forward to My Blueberry Nights (especially for Portman and Strathairn, those two should be just perfect for a WKW film), I must say that I'm really disappointed if Wong has gotten permanently stuck to the visual style of his later works. Sure, In The Mood For Love looked gorgeous and the visuals fit the film perfectly, but I think there's a real danger of his style becoming a parody of itself unless he reinvents himself at some point.
I for one wouldn't mind him doing something that felt a little bit less calculated for a change, something like Happy Together maybe.
I would imagine that since the Weinsteins are now focusing on I'm Not There as their awards season favorite, combined with the mixed reviews for My Blueberry Nights, it will probably result in the film being released in a limited capacity late this year, or early next year.
Antoine Doinel wrote:I would imagine that since the Weinsteins are now focusing on I'm Not There as their awards season favorite, combined with the mixed reviews for My Blueberry Nights, it will probably result in the film being released in a limited capacity late this year, or early next year.
Boo! Yet another Wong Kar-Wai film I'll have to wait for dvd to see. . .
Antoine Doinel wrote:I would imagine that since the Weinsteins are now focusing on I'm Not There as their awards season favorite, combined with the mixed reviews for My Blueberry Nights, it will probably result in the film being released in a limited capacity late this year, or early next year.
Are they really though?
I have a feeling I'm Not There's reviews will be highly polarizing.
I have a feeling I'm Not There's reviews will be highly polarizing.
I'm just speculating based on their previous track record with high profile films. Especially around awards season they tend to put all their money on one horse and ignore the rest in their stable. Let's hope I'm wrong.
Grimfarrow wrote:I have a feeling I'm Not There's reviews will be highly polarizing.
I'm just speculating based on their previous track record with high profile films. Especially around awards season they tend to put all their money on one horse and ignore the rest in their stable. Let's hope I'm wrong.
Sorry, I was wrong. I liked I'M NOT THERE a lot, and it certainly is much less polarizing than BLUEBERRY. Cate for her 2nd Oscar!
The trailer is pretty but the dialogue seems bland. I can't handle a Wong film in English. I have the feeling it would seem more profound if they dubbed it into Cantonese and then subtitled it...
I just read that Wong Kar-Wai reportedly re-edited "My Blueberry Nights" after the Cannes premiere. I have also read that Tim Roth hasn't been featured in any existing cut, although he did film scenes (there are set photos with him online with Jude Law somewhere, although I can't find the link at the moment). Does anybody have more information on these rumors?
I wish this was being released sooner than MIA 2008, it absolutely looks and sounds like a film I'll adore.
Here's an article from LA Times from August that addresses those rumors to a very small degree. Apparently, at least fifteen minutes have been cut with more on the way.
Thanks for the link, I had no idea what has been going on with this since the Cannes premiere, and this was reported over two months ago. It will be released in France November 28th, so I guess we'll have to wait for the comparisons until then - the early cut of Blueberry is said to be 111 minutes, so he's driving at (more or less) 90 minutes.
Anyway, maybe in half a year we'll finally see it over here, but there'll probably be an overseas DVD by then (as there was with 2046).
