Formal Criticism of the Film 2046 - Essay Example

Critical Reading and Writing Bridge Formal Analysis of the Film "2046" In her essay, "Against Interpretation", Susan Sontag refers to the "mimetic theory of art". This theory was originally proposed by Plato, who considered all objects "imitations of transcendent forms or structures", not the structures themselves. In this sense, one can only try to understand art as a description of objective reality. But Sontag goes on to point out that even the written words contained in sacred texts were subjected to reinterpretation "in order to reconcile the ancient texts to 'modern' demands". Thus, the interpretation moves further and further from the intent of the artist and the work of art itself. This paper will use formal analysis of a selection of scenes from the film 2046 by Wong Kar-wai to highlight Sontag's objection to such analysis. The film explores the experiences surrounding the many loves of the main character, Chow Mo Wan, but doesn't give a precise meaning for the events or even the relationships themselves. The film opens with the enigmatic and multi-layered image of a large, donut-shaped object. It is dark and smooth and shiny, yet also gives the impression of the spiral form of a shell. This represents the "hole in the tree" into which, according to a story repeated by Chow several times in the film, people whisper their deepest secrets, after which they fill the hole with mud to prevent the secret from ever being discovered. As Chow talks about a woman he once loved, we see a woman from behind, whispering her secret into the hole. We don't see her face. The film is filled with images that try to enlarge and deepen the impression that human memory and meaning are limited. The settings are few; a few hotel rooms, a rooftop, streets in which all that is shown is the street light or the wall of a building, a club, a restaurant, and the futuristic train that exists within the science fiction story Chow is writing. Also simplified are the appearances of the actors, almost always shown only from the chest up. They are frequently shown alone, even while conversing with another character. The colors red and black dominate the dcor and the clothing, and dark lighting is used in the majority of the scenes. On rare occasions light colors and daytime scenes are used, as when one of the hotel owner's two young and still somewhat innocent daughters is shown dressed in light green, or when a character is seen on the hotel rooftop during the day. Similarly, worldly women, or women who become worldly during the film, almost inevitably smoke and wear red, black, or gold. Many conclusions could be drawn from such repetitive symbolic content, but from Sontag's point of view, it would be a mistake to do so. Would smoking be interpreted as worldliness at all times and in all cultures, just as the colors a woman wears would always reveal her level of morality If we allow ourselves to see the red dress and the cigarette as symbolic of something specific and universal, do we then, for instance, start to ignore the facial expressions Even here the film seems to adhere to a pattern; the majority of expression shown by the actors is whether and when they do and don't look at one another. This could be interpreted as a device of emotional distancing between people who try to avoid intimacy while at the same time desperately yearning for it. Could it be that the visual elements of the film are simplified in order to force our attention to less obvious parts of the story, or to more subtle characterizations of the actors But it could also be said that the film uses such devices in order to render a flatness and hopelessness in the storyline that lets the viewer know well in advance that there will be no happy endings here. The film doesn't defend itself against this kind of analysis. In one particularly engaging sequence, Chow is writing a futuristic story in which he imagines himself as a Japanese man riding a train into the year 2046, "the place where people go to recover memories". It is no coincidence that one of the daughters of the hotel owner, with whom he realizes too late he is falling in love, is herself in love with a Japanese man, a relationship she is pursuing against her father's wishes - and with Chow's help. But in a voiceover commentary as Chow sits writing his futuristic story, he says he/the Japanese man on the train is really hoping to find the woman he fell in love with years ago. He admits he never knew if this woman loved him in return, and he does not find her in 2046. For this reason, he/the character of the Japanese man, decides to return from 2046, something that is rarely done. As his younger, handsome, Japanese alter ego endures the arduous, long, "lonely" and "often painful" journey back from 2046, his only companions are female android cabin attendants, who exist for the pure enjoyment of the passengers (of which he is the only one). They resemble women Chow has known, and the Japanese character on the train repeats the story of the tree hole to the uncomprehending androids. He asks one android repeatedly to leave with him at the end of the trip. At one point, he ever asks the captain of the train to leave with him. None of them ever give him an answer, and he finally stops asking. Such scenes heighten the emotions - of anticipation of loss, regret, agonizingly brief glimpses of hope followed quickly by resignation and sometimes despair. This is how Sontag wants art to affect its viewer. Even time itself plays a unique role in the film; captions are frequently attached to still photography, providing such phrases as "one hour later" or "100 hours later", showing the importance of time to the film and the meaninglessness of it as well. This image, while powerful, resists informing the viewer about the specific thematic intention of the element of time, and perhaps the viewer is left with no choice but to give up the expectation that the film will proceed in an orderly and linear fashion, as so many other films do. It seems interpretation of any kind quickly becomes an ultimately confusing pursuit, each interpretation leading to a counter-interpretation, or a sub-interpretation, until any emotional experience the filmmaker intended to share with the viewer is lost to intellectualization. As Sontag warned: "the modern style of interpretation [of art] excavates, and as it excavates, destroys." It is this destructive effect that causes the aim of art, which is to provide an emotional experience, to be neglected, thus limiting the ability of art to reach us and affect us as it was intended to do. At one point in the film, Chow relates the story of a woman, named Su Li Zhen, who at some point helped him win back the money he had lost gambling in Singapore so he can return to Hong Kong in return for his promise that once he has his money back, he will stop gambling. Chow tells her of his tragic love for another Su Li Zhen, who was married to another man. Could this be the woman we saw whispering into the symbolic tree hole at the beginning of the film We never find out. Chow abruptly stops telling his "sad tale" and asks about this Su Li, also known as Black Spider. "You want to know about my past" she asks. She fans out a deck of cards for one round of high-low. She says if he wins, she will tell him everything about herself. Of course he does not win, but from the moment we see them together, though they seem to connect in some way, we know they will make no lasting connection. Is this shown to prove Chow's rueful observation that in love, timing is everything, and the real tragedy of love is to meet the right person at the wrong time If so, of whom is he speaking Chow doesn't realize at this point that he is trying to recapture his love for the first Su Li when he invites Black Spider to return with him to Hong Kong, but Black Spider realizes this all too well, and saves them both from his mistake by refusing his request. When they part, Chow kisses her with such intensity that she cries, realizing that the passionate kiss wasn't meant for her. "When you manage to escape your past," he says to her, "come and find me." But he is the one who is confusing past and present, as does the character of Bai Ling, with whom Chow had a long relationship, but with whom Chow apparently never fell in love. After being parted for some time, they meet again and she asks him - half hopefully, half rhetorically - "Why can't it be like it was before" Sontag calls interpretation [of art] the "revenge of the intellect upon the world" as a result of our having lost the sensibility to experience art on an emotional level. But she hopes that in the future the aim of commentary on art (as opposed to interpretation) "should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us[and] "the function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means." Perhaps this would help close the distance that has been created between the artist and the audience by choosing to ignore altogether the mimetic idea of art and the obsession with content in favor of "a descriptive vocabularythat dissolves considerations of content into those of form." The two aspects would then be united, as Sontag apparently believes they were never meant to be separated in the first place. Works Cited 2046. Dir. Kar Wai Wong. Perf. Tony Leung Chui Wai, Li Gong, Takuya Kimura, Faye Wong, Ziyi Zhang, Carina Lau, Chen Chang. Sony Pictures Classics, 2004. Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966. Read More