More 2046 thoughts
Question: In the voiceover intro, Tak says "Every passenger who goes to 2046 has the same intention. They want to recapture lost memories - because nothing ever changes in 2046. Nobody really knows if it's true because nobody has ever come back. Except me" but then Tak says "If someone wants to leave 2046 - how long will it take? Some people get
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About the possible contradiction between this:
Nobody really knows if it's true because nobody has ever come back. Except me" but then Tak says "If someone wants to leave 2046 - how long will it take? Some people get away very easily. Others find that it takes them much longer.
I have a vague memory of this issue crossing my mind at some point, too and of discussing this with my friend James who is a WKW and 2046 issue. I can't remember the answer he gave me so I've emailed him to ask :D I also remember that at the time I kept getting mixed up between 2046 and 2047 :P By the way, you might know this already but 2046 is the year that China's 50 year arrangement with Hong Kong expires. Hong Kong will revert back to China in total. That is the day when all of the leases in Hong Kong become Chinese so it's a very significant date from that perspective. It will mark the end of one era and the beginning of another.
I went to check the Chinese subtitles for the section you mentioned and the Chinese reads as follows:
"No one really knows if it's true or not because nobody has ever come back. Except me. If someone wants to leave 2046 - how long will it take? Some people MIGHT get away very easily. Others MIGHT find that it takes them much longer."
So in my mind there are three possible explanations.
1. It's a simple translation issue between Chinese and English.
2. It's merely Tak speculating without an answer.
3. Tak says that he has 'come back' from 2046 which is slightly different from merely 'leaving' 2046. Presumably - some might might leave but be on the journey back forever? Forever on that train?
I'm not sure to where he is coming back exactly but there seems to be a difference to returning from 2046 and the leaving of 2046 which appears to be a painful process.
I'm still pondering the other bits in your post but I have a couple of other points in addition to the above. Hee.
I've mentioned before that I am very curious about Tak's back. In my documentary page I've got some screen caps from the making of, and also in some of the 'flashing images' sequences in 2046, you can see Tak standing with a Thai actor in what appears to be a tunnel of sorts. I think there's a suitcase as well. All very mysterious.
Also, I was reading a review somewhere else and they said this:
When leaving Bai Ling for the last time after she asked him to stay, he takes her hand and says: “… there is one thing, I never lend to anyone”. He turns around and leaves her. He is like the "bird without legs that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired. The bird only lands once in its life... that's when it dies.", a history that appears again and again in the films of WKW.
You know, it never occurred to me that Chow might also be like the legless bird. I like Chow and disliked Yuddy so the thought that the two are in any way similar is abhorrent to me.
PS: I found this rather amazingly in depth analysis of 2046 here.
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Errrr ... I meant expert. Sometimes I think I must have mad cow disease or something.
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My interpretation is that...no one leaves 2046. If you do, no one knows how long it takes ie. how long he has to be in that train.
People stay in 2046, so actually no one takes the train back - except for Tak. Even though he decided to get on that train, it still all depends on himself. 2046 is our past. People stay there because they don't want to change. Only chow wants to have change. Although he wants to change or forget the past, that doesn't mean he can do it, it all depends wether he can let it go.
For instance, no one eats dinosaur. You might say that if someone tries to eat it, some can swallow it easily, some must chew longer, some cannot swallow al all. The above statement doesn't really mean that someone has definitely eaten dinosaur before
He had me until he started talking about dinosaurs ;)
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My only quibble with it is that the intro voiceover clearly says: "-because nothing ever changes in 2046. Nobody really knows if it's true because nobody has ever come back. Except me."
It's not just that Tak left 2046, that he got on the train...but he says that he came back. That's where I find the really shining beacon of hope at the end of Chow's story, as I choose to perceive it. It's not just that Tak decides to leave 2046, and he boards the train...but he decides to give up on Android Jing Wen, and he walks away, and according to that intro voiceover he does come back. But I guess it depends also on whether you choose the intro voiceover as the end or the ending voiceover, because if I recall correctly, Chow's voiceover at the end does not say that he made it back from 2046.
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3. Tak says that he has 'come back' from 2046 which is slightly different from merely 'leaving' 2046. Presumably - some might might leave but be on the journey back forever? Forever on that train?
Oh, that's an excellent point! You're right - it's entirely possible to be forever on the train...after all, Tak is on the train, but makes a conscious decision to walk away at the end, leaving Android Jing Wen staring out the window.
Somehow staying on the train seems even sadder than staying in 2046.
I've mentioned before that I am very curious about Tak's back.
Do you mean as in his wounds? Or his strange shredded (or purposefuly mostly missing) clothes? I wonder about both actually. I tend to think (similarly to you, I think) that the wounds are some kind of psychological damage likely, the difficulty of making it out of there, but how exactly are they sustained?
If one examines the two characters of Jing Wen's boyfriend and Chow (characteristics of both could be present in the Tak character) - they have both been in a painful limbo. The boyfriend has been waiting for Jing Wen for six years (at least) and from the sound of his letter, is wondering even if she still loves him (which is scary considering he's been waiting all that time...not to know for certain if she loves him is just too sad), while Chow is struggling against his past and his inability to move beyond his "lost memories."
And that review is bloody amazing. I'm just in awe of its depth of analysis, and I have had many "wow" moments while reading it.
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I kind of forgot to add the word 'story' to the end of back but if we can be deep about facial hair vs no facial hair, presumably Tak, his back and his injuries are just as important as his backstory.
Ahem.
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But isn't his back and those wounds part of his "back story?" See, it makes sense, really. :P
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Btw, I have five 2046 icons right now! Eeek, and I try to quite strictly limit myself to no more than 3 from any fandom...(2 of them are masquerading under actors names, so that's how I'm justifying it). Yes, you can laugh at me. :D
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By the way, I recall something that you wrote when you were capping the film, that there aren't any "not beautiful" frames in the film
I think it might have been when Chow is repeating his 'getting ready' scene from Days of Being Wild. The camera goes around the room and just the paraphernalia lying around the room looks like a postcard. Same with Bai Ling's room. That's why I capped Jing Wen's shoes! :P Tak's back, Jing Wen's shoes, Tak's facial hair ...I sound like a sick puppy, but I'm not really ;)
I have five 2046 icons right now!
I usually have at last six plus 2 Chungking Express icons but I don't have rules anymore simply because I found that like my mp3s there's a huge difference between what I like and what I like to use/listen to. So now I just delete all the icons I like but never use and keep them in my 'holding bay' so I can still admire them when I need to, and then I just load up my user icons with as many as I feel like using. :) 2046 is fairly constant for me because it's not like BSG or a tv show that's going to go through ups and downs and make me disenchanted with it and I've liked Faye Wong since 1993 so I 'let' myself have additional icons :D
I haven't seen 'Chinese Box' because I find Jeremy Irons really creepy and I was afraid it was going to be another Western Male with Token Submissive Asian Female In A Lead Role movie ...... Was it good?
The 2046 issue is quite significant in China. For instance, long-term leases (egg 99 years) in Hong Kong can only be renewed up until 2046.
As to 'leaving 2046' and 'coming back from 2046', I now seem to remember that Tak at some point mentions he's not sure how long he's been on the train. Presumably this is saying that some people who go back to rediscover their lost memories then do one of 3 things:
1. they stay there with their memories in the past unable to move on
2. they leave ie. they try to come back to continue with their lives but remain in limbo (on the train) until they leave.
3. they come back and go on with their lives - which is what Chow/Tak have done.
I'm not sure where I got the numbers but in my mind I had Tak and Jing Wen together in Hong Kong while he was stationed there for the majority of the six years. Hopefully he was only in agony for the (2-4?) years that they were apart and his doubt only arose after he left because she wouldn't go with him. I was just thinking that there are many who would say that both of them should have given up and moved on with their lives - that it would have been healthier. I'm so glad that they persisted anyway.
I loved that review, too but the problem is now I feel like I really have to see 'Fallen Angels' with Takeshi (see icon) which everyone tells me is really gritty, bleak and sad, and also 'Ashes of Time' which is even more polarising than '2046'. People who love it, love it, people who don't like it absolutely and totally loathe it and I've known people who are WKW fans who hate it. :P I'll just have to be brave and watch them :)
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Hmmm..I wish I could tell you. I remember liking it and it was very very sad, but I was a different person then, so who knows what I would think now. I just don't remember enough to really say. How awful! I guess I'll be renting this...
I feel relieved that Jing Wen's boyfriend wasn't waiting for her for six whole years...that's just so sad. The thing that bugs me about his waiting (which I love and find incredibly beautiful, faithful and romantic) is that he's still asking her if she feels the same way, if she loves him the way he loves her. Is he just saying this, or does he really not know? I hope that he's just saying this, knowing that her sense of doom about their relationship is just because it's so hard and they have so many obstacles, and not because he really doubts the strength of her feelings. Either way, I still just want to hug him and drag them bodily into the same one square meter space and leave them to it.
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