Identity and Chungking Express (page 5)

One may find it hard to correlate Faye’s free-form living with the idea of rootlessness, but consider this: WKW is not just putting forth the idea that the rootless are simply unassimilated individuals on the edge of a central society. Though she is merely an interloper at Tony’s house, Faye’s influence means not that she becomes at home in his house, but that the house itself changes with her presence. This is almost the story of a society like Hong Kong: created by fusion and hybrids. We see how Tony’s outlook changes via touches of dramatic irony: ‘I feel change coming... my senses have become sharper... I didn’t know ketchup sardines had a black bean flavour,’ he says when he eats from the tins relabelled by Faye. And when Faye arrives with a bag of goldfish and is shocked to see him already at home, she freezes - the one thing she rarely does in the film - and suddenly becomes very ill-at-ease. After massaging her legs Tony puts on - you guessed it - California Dreamin’, saying (without even looking) that it is his girlfriend’s favourite. The house, which holds so many memories of his ex, has now had its identity ‘relabelled’ by Faye.

However, something is behind these ideas which takes a cock-eyed look at change itself. For example, when Tony talks to his new possessions he seems to disapprove of their guises. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time,’ he says to his suddenly new towel. ‘You’ve changed. We need to have character. Even if she’s not coming back, you can’t give up yourself because of her.’ WKW has bled this need for ‘character’ beyond the confines of discrete individuals and on to objects. This seems ridiculous, considering the fact that objects - especially in consumerist society - have an inherent interchangeability.

But in the WKW world, sometimes even humans can be interchangeable. Consider the scene in Ashes Of Time when Leslie Cheung dreams of being touched - the dream melting into a four-way displacement of obsession. In Chungking, when Tony sees his towel weep he feels pleased: ‘Even though its form had changed, its identity remained the same.’ What does such an idea say for Tony’s outlook as a whole? For a while he doesn’t discern the very differences which have been created by Faye, which we have been made to see. Despite what looks like a unique identity stemming from Faye, Tony is seeing something more universal - ignoring the form.

For Tony, in his mind has a carved out identity of ‘girlfriend’. This is an identity itself, not the person who is to play the role. Originally it is Valerie Chow, but then Faye comes close to filling that identity (close, but not quite, given the open ending). WKW retains the uniform of the air-stewardess as it reminds us, not of Valerie herself, but of the ‘girlfriend’ identity that she had with Tony. And so, when we see Valerie for the last time, she is out of uniform because we (and Tony) no longer see her as being in that role. When we see Faye in uniform, it shows a certain nexus she has reached with what we see as the identity of ‘girlfriend’.

Or, to put things in a simpler way, it doesn’t matter who Tony falls in love with. Just as he doesn’t discern the difference between one towel and another, so to with the actual person whom he is in love with - one can go so far as to say that the form has changed, but the identity of ‘lover’ remains the same. At first, such a concept may seem to devalue the characters, but that simply isn’t the case. Whilst we can say that every individual has their own personal identity, such concepts cannot account for individual perception of others. The mind does not work by absolutes - we have to work with relative values, by association.

In fact, what WKW achieves (or surpasses) is close to the very concept which critics wanted him to expand upon in In The Mood For Love: namely the idea that the protagonists are not unique. It’s not that WKW punctures our belief that we, like the protagonists, are unique, unfathomable and singular. It’s just that he presents (as ever) a more interesting idea: the idea that our relationships are not built upon our own personal, unique identities, but on the identities we impose on each other. Our ‘Dream Lover’, as the title of Faye Wong’s Cranberries cover version reads, is an internal concept - whereas the actual person is a different individual: a stranger whom our Takeshi may bump into. Love is the identity which is carried through, whereas the form itself is prone to change.

If we only look at this from Tony’s point of view, we might accuse WKW of mistreating the human value of his characters - particularly as we may be sensitive about Tony treating the identities of the two women in his life with ambivalence. Yet WKW has gone to the trouble of fleshing out his characters - not in traditional characterisations, but nevertheless with a profoundly human warmth - an example being the energy of Faye’s persona which leaps from the screen. This is because they are inherently individuals - an idea which underpins a respect for humanity. Yet WKW makes us acknowledge that, despite their inherent individuality, to others they can (perhaps must) have an identity which is not absolute, not inherent to themselves.

Take Takeshi, for example. He is the flip-side of what we see with Tony. Though he too has been dumped, we are given some kind of insight (even if it is in the form of a conceit) into how the relationship ended. With Tony, we are told that Valerie ‘wanted to try other flavours’ - almost an assertion of independence itself - but we aren’t given any particular reasons why Tony has ceased fitting the identity of ‘lover’. With Takeshi, he tells us that May split up with him because he was becoming, ‘unbearably unlike [Yamaguchi] Momoe’s husband, Miura Tomokazu.’ These foreign superstars are ciphers - roles for the two lovers to play. Cynically, we may say that such a relationship is based on a false premise: how can there be love if the two must play the roles of other people? Yet, are we supposed to believe that what we call love is based on some absolute factor, something inherent? WKW wisely offers no answer on this, for we would otherwise have to throw open the whole question of what love is. But the idea of the imposed roles does hint that May’s love is directed toward the uncertain identity of ‘lover’ symbolised by Tomokazu, rather than the personal, uniqueness of Takeshi himself. It is this notional Tomokazu whom Takeshi curses as he runs up stairs after hearing a man on May’s phone. Eventually, after realising May will not return to him Takeshi experiences an epiphany: ‘As May the 1st begins, I come to understand something: to May, I am just a can of pineapple.’ He is - to her - just another used form: another interchangeable product.

But, in closing, let’s not take things too far. WKW has been called an optimist and a profound humanist with good reason. He gives his characters uniqueness and profoundly internal thought, and they are capable of yearning for singular, absolute concepts (like the single, eternal lover they so often cannot have) with a longing that almost confirms their life. What WKW does is to introduce a degree of ambiguity which allows us to doubt those all too perfect, too absolute ideals - showing just how those ideals conflict with reality. There is no rant in the film: we aren’t told to dislike consumerism and its associated transience (if pressed, WKW will give some noncommittal comment on how ‘cities are looking similar - you get McDonalds everywhere’), but the idea which does filter through is that modern society magnifies (but doesn’t actually create) the concept of a lack of identity - or the concept of identities which are not absolute. We are drawn into the internal worlds of the characters as this is the only way we can see something unique to them; the slither of thought that marks them out from otherwise being another shoulder to bump into. And it is typical WKW that we are able to see both sides of the equation at once: the very personality of the characters which marks them out as inherent individuals, celebrating this very concept; as well as the inescapable idea that, from an external point of view, identity is relative, interchangeable and not absolute. WKW does all this without compromising what, at its heart, is a film which moves and lifts in a manner which concepts and theories cannot fully account for - and the result is a film which has ethereal brilliance as well as latent, yet undeniably profound depth.