Asians Representin' at Cannes... and 2046(!)

NY Times article on the Asian selections that took over a third of the film fest... and on Wong Kar Wai's loooong awaited film. [subscription req'd, I think.]

What we did witness was, well, a Wong Kar-Wai movie, full of lush, melancholy sensuality and swathed in light as lustrous and supple as the Shantung dresses all of the actresses seem to wear. The title, by the way, refers both to a hotel room in Hong Kong in the late 1960's and a high-speed train racing through the future, and one of the film's themes (aptly enough, given the drama surrounding its arrival) is time. The characters are always falling in and out of love too soon or too late, and the chronology glides forward and backward.

Like other work from this director, "2046" teases the boundary of incomprehensibility. It is a series of moods, nuances and gorgeous moments � seductions, couplings, tearful partings � with the usual connective tissue left out, or implied in title cards and voice-overs. After the two screenings early in the evening, quite a few viewers rushed back to see it again later Thursday night, to experience its intoxicating beauty one more time, and also to figure out what on earth it was about.

More on 2046 from the official Cannes site: teaser clip, red carpet walk and press conference. [Real Player]
...and Dutch TV coverage with two scenes from the film from 12:39 - 14:30 [Real]

[all links via Lossless]

Goodness, Gong Li still looks as gorgeous as ever. And WKW did an excellent job of casting Zhang Ziyi as a sweet-talking bitchy prostitute (just like her real life personality, as some may say. Hmm hmm...)

Grrr. If only my app to the French embassy got there on time... I could have been in Cannes WATCHING all of this action.