HAPPY TOGETHER

** ^{out of} ****

Slow Tango in (Buenos) Aires

After seeing HAPPY TOGETHER, I must admit to doing a double-take when I read later that Wong won an award for it at Cannes 1997 for best direction. I must confess a general disappointment over the Cannes winners this year - Grand Prix co-winners Shohei Imamura (THE EEL) and Abbas Kiarostami (TASTE OF CHERRY) and especially Wong seem to have won based on past performance since they have directed much better films than their current offerings.

Wong has been widely praised for his innovative visuals, and received similar, deserved attention in North America last year for the sunny CHUNGKING EXPRESS. Wong uses the same visual formulas for HAPPY TOGETHER, but I'm afraid it doesn't work for this slow document of disintegration.

Wong's visual flash does little to energize this relationship. The story (scripted by Wong) of two forever-bickering gay lovers stranded in Argentina, though well-acted, is dull and actively annoying.

Loyal Lai Yui-Fai (Tony Leung) seems forever hooked on promiscuous Ho Po-Wing's (Leslie Cheung) repeated promises to "start over." When Ho winds up badly injured by a trick, Lai becomes his caretaker, the two cohabiting uneasily, sexless but not necessarily loveless, in a squalid room. Still, Lai can't let go, even hiding Ho's passport.

Their stalled travel plans reflect their relationship's travails: will they find their way to that permanent state of being happy together (symbolized by the Iguazu Falls), or will they continue getting lost, littering their path with recycled promises of starting over? Happiness is the common goal, but will they arrive there together? Only after Lai meets Chang (Chang Chen) at one of his menial jobs does his goal become apparent.

All this is filmed with listless camera work and supersaturated colours alternating with keyed up black-and-white courtesy of cinematographer Chris Doyle. In CHUNGKING EXPRESS, this effectively suggested the restlessness of youth in an untiring urban environment, but visual trickery does little to liven up the isolation and repetitiveness of the relationship in HAPPY TOGETHER. Here, Wong's flashy style seems an opposition, in truth, a device to keep the viewer's senses going as the narrative stagnates into a cycle of breakups and reconciliations. C

HAPPY TOGETHER (CHEUN GWONG TSA SIT)

Directed and written by: Wong Kar-wai

Hong Kong, 1997

Review completed on September 21, 1997.