Wong Kar-wai - Godard

Wong Kar-Wai's work is a dark, sparkling diamond in the rough of Hong Kong cinema. Poetic albeit obscure, Kar-wai offers a refreshing, distinctive vision in an underground scene that has grown weary of the cliched wuxia flick. Unlike his contemporaries, Kar-wai breaks the mold by drawing inspiration from the French New Wave, in particular, the vibrant complimentary backdrops found in Godard's technicolor feats like 'Pierrot' and 'Contempt', or Demy's melodramatic love letters in the 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg' and the 'Sisters of Rochefort'. These films that may contain a senstivity to light and color from the cinematography department, are largely in contrast with Kar-Wai's choice of multi-layered narrative loops. Kar-Wai's work as a whole truly examines the possibility of what the New Wave would be if the style is resurrected in the present day with modern camera work that offers more sophisticated shot angles, slo-motion tracking, greater color scales, and bold visceral filters. 

Kar-Wai is the movement's ideal successor in adding to it's broad lexicon devices of dreams and memories to stream parallel with a subject's action making for a composited abstract poem. If Godard is the Picasso then Kar-Wai is like the extension of this with hints of arthouse flair. Contrasting from the New Wave's scatter mindedness, Kar-wai demonstrates sensitivity and growth  to this abstraction. Within a romance genre that has lacked a sophistication in it's execution, the enigma that Kar-Wai has presented to us and wants his audiences to solve while on a ride that consists of twists and turns, is a point of observance that the viewer must draw from introspection. Understanding is sometimes the farthest point from empathy here. What remains stagnant and cohesive is the feeling of attachment and attraction between each character interaction. Similar to the ambiguity in a Godard narrative, Kar-Wai adds emotion to his characters so that the viewer can leave questioning the story while marveling at a romantic bond that is conflicted by a forgetfulness of dreams and memories. This bond can only be entirely solved on a personal level just as any moment of isolation would inhibit the thoughts of a poet's voice in a dark apartment space like in '2046'. The events that occur before and after may be subliminal to the emotion experienced in between action.  What happens in the past, present and future is integral and doesn't necessarily apply here in a Kar-Wai film. Once we realize that occurence is rather blended with the hue of Kar-Wai's amtospheric backgrounds, the emotions expressed is the missing key to this chaotic metropolitan setting; words become more palatable through poetic verses than the third-person.

With the exception of Yimou, Kar-Wai may be the most prominent filmmaker to arise from Hong Kong's scene in the 90's. His work should be recognized as the very hallmark to cinema in China.