Loneliness and Alienation

Happy Together (1997) 

Combination of unconditional love and at the same time emotional saviness have nailed Happy Together that would be a tearjerker to others and a film of abash since this is not a typical Chinese love story that has the Hollywood cliché of happily ever after. Tony Leung plays Yiu-Fai, apparently starts working at a tango bar to save up for his trip home who claims to still revive the lost love with Leslie Cheung who plays Po-Wing- whose personal choice is to pursue sexual relationships with other men leads. Chen Chang is very different in this flick since Chang, the character that he’s playing is very fenzy compared to what he was in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

In the first scene to feature the leads, we hear Yiu-Fai telling us that his lover, Ho Po Wing always uses the phrase, ‘Let’s start over’, which you would understand at the end of credits why being out of love and being out of place establishes the impossibility of reconciliation. 

Their escape to Argentina proves to be their undoing but it would have happened anywhere. Argentina physically represents their relationship—claustrophobic and oppressive, something that might have been beautiful yet becomes a symbol of escape.

Buenos Aires is depicted like the end of the world, the last stop for the truly lost, subject only to intrusions by busloads of crass tourists and sexual predators willing to pay for kitsch and artificially of any kind. This is not a film which lends it self to a happy mood, ironically. 

Though much sadness exists, Tony Leung’s character is touched and reminded by a young and cheerful kitchen hand at the restaurant he works at, the hope and salvation exists, if only you have the strength to take that step. 

 

Christopher Doyle dazzling and unparalleled shooting speed plus its melancolia on every establishing shot particularly the Iguazu falls that goes along with character’s monologue and the scenes are killing it.

Wang Kar-Wai's emotional tale of two lovers stranded in Buenos Aires, reflects his opinions on denial and camaraderie; the director’s favorite techniques which is to often have his characters indulge in the role of a spectator to their own lives and the exterior events around them with the use of poetic monologue