Kar Wai Wong is without a doubt, one of the best directors today. That said, with "2046" he achieves something of an impressive feat with this film that keeps reminding us of his previous "In the Mood for Love", which in comparison, pales next to this new installment of Mr. Wong's take about the life of the character of the previous film. The gorgeous cinematography of Christopher Doyle, Kwan Pun Leung and Yiu-Fai-Lai has a rich texture throughout the film and the haunting musical score by Peer Raben and Shiguru Umebayashi fits the movie like a glove.
Some people commenting in this forum have expressed the view of Mr. Wong's film being futuristic because the way the film starts. But basically, those futuristic sequences last so little on the screen that it might be a misnomer for "2046" to be deemed about the future, when in reality we are taken back to the sixties when Mr. Chow is seen so much in love with Bai Ling.
Mr. Wong gives us a vivid account of what the two lovers had together, but he also takes us back when something is revealed about Mr. Chow we never knew about his involvement with SuLi Zheng, the mysterious woman who is lucky in winning for him an enormous amount, but while he falls in love with her, she coolly lets him go.
We are also shown Wong Jing Wen, who Mr. Chow had a passionate love affair with, in the previous film. It appears the involvement they both had is now clearly forgotten, or maybe it wasn't as important as it once appeared to be.
The director's technique calls for an infinite amount of medium shots, usually over the shoulder of the person that listens. As a matter of fact, there is hardly any scenery in the film since most of the action either takes place while the characters are seen in conversation, or in bed where some of the torrid encounters take place. The futuristic scenes seem to be a sort of limbo where the characters, like the beautiful Android, seems to in in a world of her own.
The best asset in the film is the music the director adds to the different scenes. Some of the music is nostalgic, some operatic, or depending on whatever is being emphasized at the moment. The music enhances the action in ways that make the film hard to forget.
The best thing the director has in the film is the enormously talented Tony Leung. Mr. Leung is an actor that is always interesting to see in anything. In this film, Mr. Wong and his main actor show how attuned they both are to their collaboration. Ziyi Zhang is tremendously appealing as Bai Ling, the woman that loved intensely and suddenly finds herself on her own after the affair ended. Gong Li is seen briefly as SuLi Zheng, the mysterious woman with the one black globe he meets in Singapore. Also Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau contributed to the film as the women in Mr. Chow's life.
"2046" is a hypnotic piece of film making because the magnificent style which Kar Wai Wong gives to everything in the film to achieve this moody piece that examines love relationships in ways that are seldom seen in the movies.
