Wong Kar-Wai Is Your Friend
Photograph by Dalia Janian, modeled by Savannah
Urban isolation and loneliness are by no means exclusive to the pandemic we are currently facing, but they certainly are being – perhaps for the first time – suffered through as a collective. It is almost ironic for an experience as solitary in nature as loneliness to be described as part of a broader, communal experience since everyone still faces it alone. Yet the phenomena of collective isolation across the displaced and the socially distanced remains, even among whole demographics usually too preoccupied with work deadlines and social lives to sink into the stagnant idleness of a lonely week.
Today, at a crossroads between worlds, half of us must return to work and study while the other half stay put. In this liminal space we occupy everything is all the more uncertain; all the more lonely. It is in times like this that people decide to seek reassurance in the shared sense of loneliness, although it becomes a lot more challenging in practice.
However, I am here to tell you that, intentional or not, Wong Kar-Wai is now your friend. Hell, so am I. And your new friends won’t let you face this alone.
Wong is a true master of urban isolation in cinema. He often uses the frenzied, metropolitan landscape of Hong Kong as an additional character to further the loneliness of his protagonists through their stark juxtaposition: to exist in solitude against a backdrop of liveliness personified; to be engulfed in loneliness when you are everything but fully alone. The contradiction speaks for itself, making the feeling of urban isolation sting all the more.
So, who better to provide comfort in the face of solitude and the unknown than Wong? Rather than feeling small against his jungle-like extension of back streets and alleyways, by revisiting his filmography through the lens of a pandemic you can relish in the familiarity as his cast of outsiders grapple with their own solitude.
Fallen Angels (1995), a lovelorn tale of the unobtainable and the unrequited and the unspoken, remains just as pulsating and sickeningly real twenty five years on from its release. One character spends the duration of the film craving warmth only another person can provide. However, while known for his poetic dialogue, Wong’s portrayal of loneliness is never romanticized and lies bare for all to see. From Chungking Express (1994) to Happy Together (1997), characters are blinded by their desperation to rid themselves of this loneliness and it is what often leads them astray and causes them to act recklessly… much akin to what breaking quarantine could do to someone today.
The aching melancholy of In The Mood For Love (2000) serves as another example of times distance and restraint kept those who care deeply for each other apart – another likeness to the current epidemic. Not so unlike us with our Zooms and our group chats, these are characters that call each other’s office just to hear the other’s voice. And when no one is on the receiving end of their secrets and their whispers, a hole carved into a tree is more than enough of a substitute in the intensity of their solitude. While “Quizás, quizás, quizás” softly plays in the background of the film, you can even join Nat King Cole in wondering about the ever-haunting uncertainty of the great perhaps.