Happy Together

There's something about Happy Together that reminds me of Godard's Vivre sa vie - apt, as Wong Kar-Wai and JLG have more than a bit in common. I've intended to watch Happy Together for ages - in fact, I bought the dvd a good couple of years ago, thinking that I could watch it before heading off to Buenos Aires, where most of the film takes place. It's a beautiful setting, and WKW and cinematographer Christopher Doyle use the city and some spectacular natural settings from elsewhere in Argentina to dizzying effect, enhanced by the Piazzolla soundtrack and of course by (and with) the 'narrative' of two unhappy lovers, Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung (a dream pairing if ever there was one), and a third with who has also become becalmed in BA while drifting on his own journey (Chang Chen). It's a film that has an impact at the time, but then really lingers, the intensity and textural quality of the mood it creates sinking further in as the film and its images become part of one's own internal landscape - like things already familiar, but now heightened.