Dazzling images from a futuristic society where train networks cover the globe opens 2046, which immediately suggests to the audience that this is a science fiction film.  These trains have the capability to bring people to the year of 2046 where nothing ever changes and from where nobody has ever returned, except for the story's hero.  However, the science fictional opening is merely a novel with an intriguing allegorical portrayal of the main character, Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung), who exists in the 1960's Hong Kong upheaval where he worked as low-paid journalist while womanizing between jobs.  This is the same Chow who the audience recognizes from the brilliant In the Mood for Love (2000) who still seems to be caught in a similar restlessness, but the difference in 2046 is his perspective of women.

On a Christmas Eve Chow bumps into an old friend, Lulu (Carina Lau), who he helped out in Singapore many years ago.  Together they get drunk, which leads Chow to bring her home, a cheap room, 2046, at the Oriental Hotel.  Later Chow returns Lulu's key, but finds out that she has moved out.  This event triggers an internal fixation in Chow who generates a bizarre interest in the room 2046, as he wants to move into the room.  However, the room is under construction and Chow moves into 2047 instead where he begins the construction of his novel.   When Chow moves into his new hotel room he learns that Lulu was murdered in 2046, which also becomes the title of his novel.  Through the process of writing Chow drifts into his past containing several women and other emotional memories including Lulu.

Amidst Chow's writing he continues to sway girls to private meetings in his small hotel room where he lives.  Women purely become a commodity that provides time for him, as he provides time for them.  This is a time when Chow can find a moment of physical closeness and touch, however, he never forms any meaningful relationships built on communication, trust, and care.  These women merely provide a moment where he can remove loneliness in-between work, writing his novel, and more women.  Chow also listens to the new neighbors in 2046, first the owner of Hotel Oriental's daughter and later Bai Ling (Ziyi Zhang) with whom he begins to build a peculiar relationship.  Bai and Chow's connection builds on payments after sexual favors, something she rejects, but Chow does as he does not want to be tied to her.

There are several elements in the film that suggest Chow has developed an emotional insecurity in regards to love and women.  One of the most striking symbols presents itself in a scene when Chow and a woman draw a card each from a deck and if he gets the higher card he wins and she will go with him to Hong Kong.  This scene indicates that he is out of control, which forces him to play on the luck of the draw.  Later in the film this scene will repeat itself, as Chow seems to have gained wisdom from the event.  Chow also admires women and shots from when Chow observes the different women who live in 2046 on the roof top of the Oriental Hotel from his room window suggests that he longs for them, as the camera uses an emotionally enhancing lower angle when he looks upward for the women.  Another thing these women have in common is that they are out of Chow's reach, which suggests that he desires the unobtainable.

The desire for the unobtainable, Chow's personal distance after physical connection with women, and his cerebral manifestations of how women ought to be display much about Chow.  Combined, these notions develop a more clear image of Chow and his relation to women.  One thought in particular is strikingly vivid and it is Chow's internalized anxiety, as he frequently contemplates about the women he did not get while he rejects the women in the present that desire him.  Chow is caught in a no man's land where he wanders trying to reach his past while temporarily curing his loneliness with one night stands.  Lost in this twilight Chow wanders in his memories, emotions, and combined through these he forms an unobtainable vision of how to reach lovelorn happiness.  An example of this notion is the scene where Chow encounters Lulu in Hong Kong where she displays that she has forgotten him and who he is; however, this might not be true as words can easily be manipulated in order to portray a certain desired behavior for whatever reason.

2046 is a visual manifestation of thoughts, feelings, and memories generated by Chow who seems to struggle with fulfilling his dream.  In the process, Chow ends up hurting others who seems to acquire the same method of approaching love as him.  This suggests that the notion of a twilight zone for those who are lost in love is cyclical and can be transferred to others through acts in the present.  It is bewildering to see this emotional carousel spin faster and faster, as others seem to be forced onto the carousel through the spell of love that causes much suffering and pain.

Several thoughts, reviews, and opinions have been expressed on Kar Wai Wong's 2046, which arrived to the Cannes Film Festival still hot from the cutting board.  After Cannes, Wong took the film back to the cutting board for additional work, and after almost a total of four years of hard work Kar Wai Wong presents an emotional roller coaster that at times feels like something by Buñuel.  The score elevates the mood in a similar manner, as it did in In the Mood for Love, but here with a more mesmerizing effect.  The music grabs and pulls the audience into the screen, as if it wants to hypnotize the audience to feel the same as Chow.  The camerawork is simply brilliant, as every single shot provides something for the mind to contemplate while the framing and mise-en-scene deliberately provide additional texture to the theme.  Ultimately, the audience will have ventured through an artistic maze of emotion, memory, and ideas presented in such a manner that will require extensive cerebral participation during and long after the theater seat has turned cold.

DIRECTED BY

COUNTRY

China / France
Germany / Hong Kong

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