Kar-wai Wong's Happy Together
© John Nesbit
Improvising creatively with the camera and finding ways to put that raw footage together isn't the easiest way to work. Wong's film making methods require a team that can react instinctively and understand his vision. That's why you'll see that Wong retains the same cinematographer (Christopher Doyle II) and the same editor (William Chang) in all his movies since Ashes of Time in 1994. Wong retains much of his style - experimenting with film stock, looking for interesting juxtapositions, having characters talk to themselves, and playing on familiar themes of loneliness and unrequited love. Like the other Wong films, don't expect a great deal of action; instead you will be treated to an in-depth examination of characters and their relationships.
The obvious uniqueness about Happy Together is the fact that Wong risks making a film about gay lovers, and he shoots his film outside of Hong Kong this time with some footage shot on location in Taiwan and most of it in Argentina.
Chung King Express actor Tony Leung returns to play Lai Yiu-fai, a loyal and sensitive gay man who is generally lonely and unhappy. From Wong's Ashes of Time, Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung plays Yiu-fai's lover Ho Po-wing, a promiscuous party animal who often seems to be up for sexual adventures without considering the other man's needs.
Even from the beginning their relationship seems doomed. Yiu-fai speaks to himself about the many times that they have broken up with Po-wing eventually saying that they can "start over." And now they are planning to "start over" by visiting the Iguaçu Falls in Argentina. Things go badly from the start as the two tourists get lost and stranded on a desolate highway outside of Buenos Aires, and Po-wing abandons Yiu-fai for being "boring."
Out of money, Yiu-fai takes a menial job as a doorman outside a Buenos Aires tango club, where he eventually sees his former lover enter the club with a few "white trash" men cruising for sexual adventure. Once again we see Yiu-fai demonstrate the pained look of a typical jilted lover, as he watches Po-wing kissing one of his new-found friends demonstratively. Cut later to a pensive and sad Yiu-fai, alone in his rented room clad in only his underwear pound his wall in frustration.
