Happy Together (1997/Kino International Blu-ray)
Picture: B Sound: B Extras: B- Film: B-
As a sort
of slick artistic counterpoint (unintended) to The Wachowski Brothers’ slick
hit Bound (1996), Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together (1997) also involves a
homosexual couple (played by Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung) who go to Buenos
Aires, Argentina to work out their ever-troubled relationship. Of course, this is a doomed proposition (as
this is a Kar-Wai film) and much of the opposite will happen and then some.
Split
into five parts, it shows how toxic and dysfunctional they are. As I watched, I wondered why they were
together to begin with, but Kar-Wai seems to be trying to say something about
their sexuality and that it gives them an existential common denominator that
makes them a fit that defies their many troubles. It may be a statement about being doomed in
that all societies marginalize them and half their troubles come from not
acknowledging that, but does result in an outcome that a combination of the
return of another kind of repressed and the relationship playing itself out
result in. In this, it is bolder and
smarter than many so-called gay films, which says something that would call for
a separate essay.
Though I
am not the biggest fan of the film, its structure is the best thing about it,
followed by its performances, as the film (and Kar-Wai’s screenplay) want to
take a deep examination of all relationships by looking at a gay one. This does qualify as Gay Cinema,
yet it is not explicitly intending to be that and is so much a Kar-Wai film
that anything else seems incidental.
Worth a look if you are interested, it is as ambitious as any of the
filmmaker’s work to date.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image looks as fine as can be expected
considering Kar-Wai’s hand held style and sometimes raw look, which is supposed
to equate realism, but sometimes cuts into the fidelity of the image. Director of Photography Christopher Doyle
once again delivers the look their collaborations are now famous for and it
could not look much better than it does on this disc. This was filmed in 35mm film and benefits
greatly from that. The Cantonese DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix is an upgrade from the original theatrical
Dolby and sounds really good, all the way to the Danny Chung score, so that
makes this Blu-ray about as good as any film print out there of the film.
Extras
include trailers, stills gallery and two featurettes: Wong Kar-Wai At The Museum Of Moving Images (2008, 44 minutes) and Buenos Aires Zero Degrees (1999, 59
minutes) that is a making of look at this film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
