Accounts of his creative process suggest that the near-endless improvisational screenwriting, re-shoots, and re-conceptualization that constitute the making of a Wong Kar-wai movie are exhausting for everyone involved; until now, that exhaustion has never been visible on screen. The radiant, sporadically exhilarating 2046, his revisitation of In the Mood for Love, wears the strain of its conception: it’s about a writer (In the Mood star Tony Leung; his face is the movie’s metronome) nostalgic for a lost time and place. 2046, and its cast especially, seems hopelessly adrift in its director’s subconscious; though admittedly, there are few places some of us would rather be.
OpensAugust 5 at Landmark Sunshine
