CHUNGKING EXPRESS (49)

[July 2006: Having seen bits and pieces again in the 10 years (and counting) since I wrote this, there's no way that rating would survive today - I'd be 60+, at least - but I haven't re-watched it all the way through, so the rating remains. Just so you know...]

Directed by: Wong Kar-Wai

Starring: Tony Leung, Brigitte Lin

The Pitch: Two Hong Kong cops' stories of romantic longing and disappointment.

Theo Sez: Candy for the eyes, a feast of lush and gorgeous visuals but - though the story doesn't match the look - impossible to criticise as hollow or pretentious because it doesn't try to be about anything, making a cheerful point of its pointlessness. In that respect it's quite different to the opaque-but-lovely films of 20 years ago (Tarkovsky, Paradjanov, DON'T LOOK NOW), reflecting a deeper change in arthouse and/or "personal" movies, which can now rest on nothing more profound than a vague mournful romanticism and a playful sense of humour (one of the heroes staves off loneliness by talking to a bar of soap; another, desperate for a date, is reduced to calling the girl he sat next to in primary school). The independent artist's goal, once freed from commercialism and its dictates, needn't (anymore) be to make a political statement or even to probe emotions but to have fun - and, most importantly, to be perceived as such, to join the community of movie hipsters. None of this is necessarily a bad thing - film has rarely been the best medium for Big Statements - but it does seem a bit of a waste. A pretty doodle, artful and amusing, totally disposable. [ NB: Since writing this I've come across a rave review of CHUNGKING EXPRESS (in "The Virgin Film Guide") which makes a point of stressing that the film "could be dismissed as another bit of stylishly pomo navel-gazing - if it weren't so obviously about something". Which I guess goes to show that ascribing "meaning" to a film has nothing to do with what (if anything) it actually means, and everything to do with whether or not you responded to it in the first place. I still say that CHUNGKING EXPRESS is about nothing, but I guess what I really mean is "I never really thought about it - because I didn't care".]