Movie Review: 2046 - Desperately Seeking Maggie

Wong Kar Wai’s raison d’etre for making films is unmistakably grounded in auteurism. 2046 is a pastiche of disembodied cinema and raises the most references from his past auteurship. As we dissect the clandestine numerical meaning which turns out to be a title of the protagonist’s feature novel, Wong shuffles us back and forth to Days of Being Wild whilst setting us In The Mood For Love through subtle references. The double entendre of the title in fact refers to the last year of China’s no change policy for Hong Kong as gleaned from the director’s interview with The Guardian, as well as the room number of the hotel where the protagonist, Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) met his old lover, Su Li Zhen, a.k.a slz 1960 (Maggie Cheung). Apparently and unfortunately, we also see a ‘no change policy’ in Wong’s auteurship as yet.

The story left off from where In The Mood For Love ends as we follow Chow Mo Wan’s solitary foray into pseudo self gratifications, ironically to substitute the irreplaceable Su Li Zhen 1960 (Maggie Cheung). The film starts from the ‘abysmal hole’ of gramophone, suggesting a whole load of secrets awaiting for us to uncover (or not?) and leads us into the film characters’ kaleidoscopic storage of memories. Takuya Kimura’s sensual introductory narration expounds the theory behind 2046, a place where time stands still and memories afloat, untainted…

In Singapore, Chow Mo Wan meets Su Li Zhen No. 2, played by Gong Li, a mysterious professional gambler with a perpetual black glove, who helps him win his traveling fare back to Hong Kong. Alas, the authoritarian gambling figure is not even a pale copy of the original Su Li Zhen, and the character’s short screen time is only a fragment of Chow Mo Wan’s many passing vessels in his new fleeting life. Back in Hong Kong, Chow meets Lu Lu (carina Lau), a notable reference character from Days of Being Wild who pretends to forget Chow. One could see the director paying homage to the late Leslie Cheung by having Chow rekindling Lu Lu’s memories of her old lover (played by Leslie Cheung from Days of Being Wild) and how they met each other. Drunk and heart broken once again from the memories, Chow escorts Lu Lu back to her Oriental Hotel apartment, room 2046. A few days later, her drummer boyfriend (Chang Chen) stabs her and she exits 2046. This leaves room for Chow to move in and relieve his own nostalgia with Su Li Zhen but the manager, Mr Wang, offers him the adjacent room, as he needs to refurbish the ‘jinxed’ 2046. He reluctantly settles for 2047.

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