WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI
CINEMA’S MAGUS OF LOVE AND MUSIC…
The Blu boxset you really auteur buy this month.
WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI TBC 1988-2004 OUT 31 MAY BD EXTRAS Alternative cut/endings, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Shorts, Music videos, Booklet (limited)
On this boxset’s stand-out extra, Rian Johnson asks Wong Kar-wai about music in his films. In reply, Wong compares himself to a conductor or choreographer, orchestrating a “dance” of elements for maximum impact. Costly but covetable, Criterion’s collection reasserts Wong as cinema’s lightning conductor of feeling, whose reflections on longing unfurl like emotions rendered in rhythm and rapturous imagery.
Revisited, these seven films entwine beautifully. The atypically Scorsese-ish As Tears Go By (1988) sows seeds for the mellow-sage melancholy of Wong’s first classic, Days Of Being Wild (1990). And just as Wong’s anti-linear plots revel in the tangential, Chungking Express (1994) takes freeform shape as a reflection on time, memory and desire: 27 years on, its wistful rhapsodies still intoxicate.
Fallen Angels (1995) is its darker partner piece, Happy Together (1997) a
deep-hued meditation on commitment and displacement. Shot to perfection by DoP Chris Doyle, In The Mood For Love’s (2000) tale of unfulfilled infidelity fine-tunes the longings of Wong’s work with exquisite attentiveness. Finally, the future reverie of 2046 (2004) offers a resonant summation of Wong’s worlds, where the inscrutable becomes musical in motion. Wong can still sweep you off your feet. Well-stacked extras, mostly archival. Kevin Harley