Wong K-aren't I so good at this...

Wong Kar-wai's "2046" is quite a nice film. I had come up with all sorts of adjectives and associations to blog about it, but then I read the Sunday New York Times article about his latest effort. And all the things that I was going to say were already written in there. Or, better yet, totally superceded by far more insightful prose:

His rhapsodic movies, haunted by voice-over ruminations and swathed in lush regret, seem to transpire in the realm of memory. People and places are mourned even as they are captured on camera.

Yeah, that's about right.

The article is pretty good, as it gives me some more background on the talent he usually uses, and a little tidbit about the fact that the Australian cinematographer he has used in everything I've seen thus far (Christopher Doyle) won't be with him in his current project, "My Bluberry Nights", replaced by the Frenchman Darius Khondji.

Anyway, read the article (the NYT requires a very mild registration; it's worth it, really!). But just a couple bullets of my own observation, now that I've caught up with his works:

- Wong Kar-wai manages to land the absolutely most hottest actresses in all of Hong Kong. Daaaaammmmn!

- His (and his cinemetographer's and his art director's) use of color and texture gets better and better with every film, and it started out pretty damned good.

- It's all about the moments. From the article:

“I’ve never worked with someone who’s put so much emphasis on a single moment,” Mr. Law said between takes one night. “It’s extraordinary how he’ll take a moment and replay it and slice it up.”

Fantastic.