Retro: Chantal Akerman

CHUN GWONG JA SIT

Happy Together
Wong Kar-Wai
Hongkong, Argentinien 1997
99 min
V'11

For <![CDATA[<i>]]>Happy Together<![CDATA[</i>]]> (1997), Wong Kar Wai reduced his essential cast of characters to three and flew them halfway around the world, from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires (adding a couple of side trips to Iguacu Falls and Tierra del Fuego). The subject, moreover, is probably his boldest to date: an acrimonious and ultimately doomed gay relationship between two Hong Kong expatriates, a match that never quite becomes a triangle with a straight expatriate from Taipei. But far from concentrating or distilling his material, Wong winds up scattering it to the winds.

There are plenty of interesting aspects to this epileptic fresco. There's the passionate treatment of gay sex and romance by a straight director, featuring two of the hottest stars of Hong Kong cinema (Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung, both of whom have worked with Wong before). There's the charged and ambiguous friendship between Lai (Leung) and Chang (Chang Chen, the 14-year-old hero of Edward Yang's 1991 film A Brighter Summer Day, who's since become a big pop star in Taiwan). There's an oblique but pungent response to the end of colonial rule in Hong Kong, a sense that the characters aren't sure where or who they are as they approach the uncertainty of millennial crossover with fretful wanderlust. (A key phrase recurring in the narration and dialogue is, \"We could start over.\") There's also a sidelong glance at the way a particular subculture (Chinese) can reduce a dominant local culture (Buenos Aires) to a few pop staples: tangos and milongas by Astor Piazzolla, tunes by Frank Zappa, cigarettes, two sleazy bars, one lurid lava lamp. Ironically, what prevents <![CDATA[<i>]]>Happy Together<![CDATA[</i>]]> from becoming anything more than the sum of these parts is the same thing that keeps it alive: Wong Kar Wai's cult status.

Credits
Jet Tone Productions
Related Movies