Hidden Flick: The Ocean Learns To Sway
Love is a hell of a drug. It can also be a trap. Mix a little time into the potion and one can start longing for something that cannot be duplicated. Yes, time is an ocean, and if one swims around long enough, one can find the same wave to ride, or dwell within depending upon the dreams of those searching for something lost but soon to be found.
Pondering a return from whence love originated is also a dead-end loop that circles back upon oneself, encircling the soul like an invisible blanket of reliability that never seems to fit just right, always relinquishing its hold on the fantastical elements of what could be, and replacing them with the way things really are. And that central notion of love as a moment in space bereft of repeat visits, and time as an ocean of indifference to the dreams of man are at the heart of this edition of Hidden Flick, Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046.
The 2004 film, which took four years to produce for various apocalyptic reasons, is the third in a series spanning nearly twenty-five years in the Hong Kong filmmaker’s career after 1991’s Days of Being Wild and 2000’s In the Mood for Love. 2046 requires no information from either of the two films as it can be regarded as a stand alone experience. Well, at least it did to me, but I am not always looking for all the linear, plot-driven strands; I am looking for something different, something offbeat, something mysterious and hidden beneath the surface of what is known, speculated upon, and perceived to be. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…
A man has an experience in the year 2046 after riding on a fast train through a metropolitan city with all the touchstones of the Distant Future in Full Bloom. From there, a man and a woman or three appear in a room or two to ponder one or more memories. He’s a science fiction author, and the fiction becomes reality and time returns to the 20th century, blending between the 1960s and post-way-out-there-modern elements, drifting from relationships and into new liaisons, always returning to that one great spark of love with The One, The One that will make it all right and true. The main character is played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai with a cool intensity that is equal parts subtle, complex, and downright brilliant. His own pursuits are further complicated by the fact that the action in the film takes place in room 2046, always in that room where lost memories and experiences can be found, while Chui-Wai’s character resides in room 2047.
But The One doesn’t really exist as a martial arts novel is written, sex ensues, characters shift in and out of non-linear space, and time bends as a train from the far off future, the future when Hong Kong will be wedded with mainland China in 2047, post-British rule and post-self-governed era, bursts forth to connect the unruly with the organized, the old with the new, and forming some sort of new today with a nada nod to yesterday.
The themes of time and space are expounded upon and offered here. Hints of a glorious science fiction epic soar throughout the story, but gradually subside within the subtext of the film—one can never go home again; true, that; but one can never quite go back to the one true spark of love that began it all, that one space where it all began and ended. Yes, one can return to the person that offered said eternal love, but, somehow, in some dark, mysterious way, that love has changed and altered, grown and developed, evolved and de-evolved into yet another curl of water to drown one once again, until the head is forever on the surface, treading, always treading…the ocean does, indeed, learn to sway. The mighty ocean of time also learns to cover up the past, so one can evolve, move on, albeit dejected, but somewhat enlightened. 2046 clarifies. 2046 offers a powerful statement about living in the moment, and not leaving one’s truths hidden in a forgotten box in the past. 2046 isn’t to be described; it’s to be experienced.
- 2046: Amazon / NetFlix
- Previously on Hidden Flick: Oshare, Can You See? and Another Life, Brother
