One of the greatest films of the 90s and rivaled in Wong Kar-Wai's oeuvre only by
In the Mood for Love, Wong's 1997 film
Happy Together screened Friday at MoMA to kick off a series of films from distributor Fortissimo Films. This is one of the saddest, most achingly beautiful films ever made, with brilliant performances by Tony Leung and the late Leslie Cheung (both at their most gorgeous) as a tormented, constantly bickering gay couple, with cinematography by Christopher Doyle that switches between black and white and color to suggest the shifting moods, and a soundtrack brimming with music that complements the haunting images. After the screening Chris Doyle did one of his typically irreverent Q&As that managed to illuminate some of the creative process behind his collaboration with Wong Kar-Wai on this masterpiece.
A Hong Kong film with only one shot (upside down) actually shot in Hong Kong, it strands its characters in Buenos Aires, with side trips to Iguazu Falls and a poignant finale in Taipei. This dislocation creates an overwhelming mood of lonely exile from Hong Kong in the crucial transition year of 1997. The pain would be almost unbearable if not for the brilliance of the filmmaking on display here.
True, Jim, this is a magnificent film, one of my favorite films of the '90s! Just last week I read an interesting monograph on the film by Asian cinema scholar Jereny Tambling: http://amzn.to/srLqeK
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Girish, and the book link. I've seen the film at least 3 or 4 times previously but this viewing blew me away. All the pieces seemed to fit into place for me for the first time.
ReplyDeleteOn a somewhat related note, I'm about to rent a Hong Kong film I've never seen before, Clarence Fok's THE ICEMAN COMETH, on the strength of Jonathan Rosenbaum's inclusion of it in his canon.
Interesting: I'm teaching a film class in Massachusetts. The last three films I've screened (long ago planned) include Edward Yang's "The Terrorizers" and "YiYi" and Wong's "Happy Together". It looks like I have a New York state of mind. I'm jealous that you were able to see Yang's widow introduce "The Terrorizers." I'm seeing some of the Yang retrospective, but I wasn't able to see either of the screenings at which Ms. Peng Kaili appeared.
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