In "Images from the Inside," Jean-Marc Lalanne, giving voice-off example from Chungking Express like "In 48 hours, I was going to fall in love with this women," commented on how WKW's use of voice-off "[refuses] to allow complete involvement in what is being lived through, [and in such a refusal] lies the film-maker's most profoundly nostalgic outlook. Because true nostalgia, the saudade, is not a nostalgia for the past (which is a fairly sterile feeling) but rather the nostalgia for the present, the melancholic awareness that the present is always what is in the process of coming apart, of ceasing to exist" (24).
A similar comment was also made in Brunette's article on Days of Being Wild. "[In Days of Being Wild, the] unceasing desire to capture the present moment, for whatever reason, is always defeated, as the present is always already gone as soon as we begin to look for it" (20).
Yuddy's initial come-on line to Li-zhen, "One minute before 3:00 P.M. on April 16, 1960," the loud ticking of a clock, the frequent hammering of the rain, a woman cleans a clock over and over again, etc, altogether became a set of running motif in the film, interlacing with the theme of the implacable impossibility and hopelessness of love.
Read through both Brunette and Teo's comments on the development of those romantic (heteroerotic/homoerotic) pairings set in Days of Being Wild, and WKW's use of clock/time. Consider in what way(s) the two aforementioned techniques complement each other by sorting out the relationship set between them. You can try to develop your idea by analyzing how the concept of time/clock embedded within one particular pairing in the film. Jean-Marc Lalanne's "Images from the Inside," which provides a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of WKW's films, might also be helpful for you to develop your thought.
p.s. Days of Being Wild is available on netflix for instant watch. Our library also has a DVD copy of it.
After doing the readings, I think I have formulated my feelings on the role time plays in the film.
ReplyDeleteTime in this film is used very interestingly in that it conveys a frantic sense, without being frantic. Characters are constantly looking at themselves and focusing on how time has passed. Yuddy, in particular, has an impatient demeanor when it comes to time. He seems to get board with women after a short time, and only really lives in the moment. When questioned about marriage by Li-Zhen, he quickly breaks things off. For him, marriage means an eternity in one place. For Li-Zhen herself, she has to deal with a transition of fleeting moments turning into an eternity. I.E. The one minute friendship with Yuddy that represented his "love" for her transforming into a hellish minute that can end fast enough. Really, if the two characters had stayed "one-minute friends", there would have been no conflict for Yuddy.
At the end where Yuddy is shot, I feel like he gets the chance to slow down. He calmly stares and takes in every last moment, when just before he had stated that he would never slow down until he dies. Could it be at this moment when he has a chance to decide on who he really loves? (yes)
I am a bit confused on what the "homosexual" relationship is. A lot of what I've seen from WKW is implied undertones. This one flew right over my head.
Over all it was a great film, albeit a more confusing one than "As Tears Go By".
-Nowak, A
I believe one of the main reasons Wong Kar Wai has such a great focus on clocks and time in this movie is too show how short life can be. In the first scene, Yuddy says that they will be "one minute" friends. This is meant to be taken literally at this moment in time, however, the end of the film makes this feel like a more figurative sense. They become friends for longer than one minute, sure, but in the scope of his life, it does not seem much more than that.
ReplyDeleteWhen he gets shot, he uses his last minutes alive reflecting, presumably figuring who he was truly in love with. At that moment in time, that is all he has to decide. He could have spent half a lifetime with both of the women, yet it is in that last, dying minute that he must sort out the millions of minutes that came before, and choose one love.
-cam er on
I found that the sense of failing to capture the present was strongly epitomized by Yuddy's final aphoristic sentiment. "I used to think there was a kind of bird that, once born, would keep flying until death. The fact is that the bird hasn't gone anywhere. It was dead from the beginning." This, to me, seems to imply a critique of his failure to "land" and seize the moment, to live in the present he seems numbed to. He is set to wander, as Tide chooses to and expresses as his reason for becoming a sailor. The other characters, Li-zhen, Mimi, and Zeb all seem to have an insatiable desire to capture the moment, to possess their respective loves more specifically. That all result in failure seem to suggest an ambiguity, and allow the spectator to choose their own place along the spectrum that lie between these two extremes.
ReplyDeleteWKW really emphasizes the pacing in his films. Depending on the scene he uses slow cuts that may feel like the film is dragging on, but I think the significance of the clock is to put the emphasis on time. I think subconsciously the viewer feels the dragging on of time.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Cameron that it shows the significance of our time on earth and what we do with that time. Time plays an important role in many of WKW films. I wonder what he really meant with the placement of the clock.
I myself had not honestly noticed such a theme of capturing the present. It does seem like the present is bleak throughout, but I picked up much more on the theme of time in general, than on the fleeting feeling of the present.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the two responses, I do know where each is coming from, though. The man creates these amazing present situations for these girls, but those present situations are fleeting. Each girl can only wait for their present time with the main character to pass, until he has moved on. Time is fleeting like his love for them.
So W.K.W. attempted to both capture the present, and to show the nostalgia that lies within the ever-ebbing nature of the present. I like it, as any time theme seems to speak to me. As creators, I believe we are working especially hard against the clock, though I have little evidence to support this statement.
The most powerful image in the movie to me was the cleaning of the clocks, as it just wreaks with symbolism.
Jac.
Chungking Express is a film that stresses duality, coincidence, and forlorn love. The movie itself is split into two stories that follow men who seek a relationship. The first half follows an undercover cop, who ironically falls for a drug smuggler. He recently got out of a tough fall out with his last girlfriend, and spends much of his time obsessing over the “expiration date” of their love. He does this by buying cans of pineapple. Both characters have an obsession with time and specific moments.
ReplyDeleteLike most of WKW movies, the male characters are made far more important than the often interchangeable female characters. Although, I felt as though he gets closer and closer to making more interesting women characters with each film he makes. This was an entertaining film due to WKW’s dry humor.
Music in the film was really interesting in describing what was going on in the film. There was one reggae song (“things in life”), which for me called for the characters to make a change in their lives. Possibly beckoning Lin to ditch her Americanized personality and American boyfriend. She does this at the middle of the film, and it felt right because it’s how the song translated to me earlier in the film. For 223, it was telling him to move on. The song was telling him to throw away his obsessions with time and lost love.
In the second half of the film “California Dreamin” plays consistently. In the second story, 633 is seen playing with a plane, possibly musing the possibility of landing in California and escaping Hong Kong. The film touches on this idea of going to California a couple of times. The song itself speaks about how a place is changing, and showing desire to leave it for a fresher location.
In both of the halves, the songs both call for change. Either by letting go of the past, or leaving obsessions. I find this interesting coming for WKW in that regard. He is often one to be nostalgic of Hong Kong. I almost seems like he’s trying to tell himself something with this film. Perhaps he just acknowledging his own obsessions with Hong Kong’s glorified past.
-A. Nowak
"Unrequited love becomes an obsession when it happens in lives that are devoid of all other emotion." This idea, from the article by Teo, I think gets to the core of Wong's theme in "Days of Being Wild." Along with the repeated use of time, Wong gives us the ever depressing reality that the establishment of love is epitome of the human existence, but the constant threat of time's limitations often masks true love and creates a repetitive cycle of empty infatuations.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I respect the artistic approach Wong takes in his execution, the pairing of love and time is a very intriguing, but this is also why I did not like this film. I feel film should take to to places, and display situation that are sought after or dreamt about. By magnifying one of the most depressing facts of the human quest for true love, makes the film hard to watch and enjoy outside of it's excellent artistic execution. Sorry Ellen, does he have any uplifting films?
Chungking Express is inherently about time, deadlines, and how the quest for love seems to always end up with an incredibly amount of lonely waiting. I really found the obsession with the expiration date on the pineapples to be interesting in terms of past and present time. By making himself wait on his love and putting a deadline on that love he is almost living through the past in the future. Which is an interesting concept. Just the way that his loss of love is tearing him apart emotionally at the end of his deadline he eats all the numerous pineapples which reflects this by making him sick and throwing up. Though this throwing up of the pineapples that represent his previous love seems to be representative of the exodus of this love and the purging of that particular woman.
ReplyDeleteI think WKW uses clocks and time in his film because he knows how precious it is. Once time is gone there is no getting it back. I think the characters realize this without blatantly showing it. They know there time is limited and why waste it on people or things that aren't going to be rewarding in the end?
ReplyDeleteTo me, the relationship between time/clock and romantic pairing is almost inevitable. We are introduced to the film with a man pursuing a women with the use of time; he wins her heart by showing her how each minute is important and necessary because they are made with her. However, as time passes and minutes turn into hours, days, weeks, months, years...their love becomes unimportant and almost apathetic. We soon learn that Yuddy focuses on time because he is waiting for the minute that his "mother" gives him the details of his real mother in order to understand his life rather than feeling like an orphan. His "mother" is apathetic to Yuddy's feelings because she has all the time in the world for him to figure out his real mother, she does not want him to leave.
ReplyDeleteSu, being left alone with time and a broken heart, finds a friend who picks up her time obsession that she obtained from Yuddy. They experience romantic feelings, but ignore them because the timing does not match. Su waits for him at the soccer games, and he waits for her at the phone booth, same time, every night. Their time runs out and so does their option for creating a relationship together.
Mimi/Lulu's character is all about being too late, or missing time. She falls in love after Yuddy becomes apathetic about anything except his real mother, and follows him to the Philippines. Just like her love, her timing is off and he already moved on.