Happy Together Review (page 2)

In one sense, repetition is a classic WKW gambit, something which, when asked in relation to ITMFL, he rationalises as a backdrop of routine against which we can see character changes. Seen in this manner, we have two identical (or nearly identical) moments - but something in our understanding has changed. On the simplest level, the change is one of context: we don’t know why Days starts with the forest shot - the context only becomes clear later (a similar structural development is the initially confusing scenes when Tony Leung Kar-Fei meets old acquaintances in Ashes).

But there is also a hint at the importance of the repeated image or concept itself: these are connections, whether we are talking of a waterfall, or a tin of pineapples. In this sense, context often becomes an alien concept - we ask ourselves how do the characters interface with the idea of the Falls (other than the banal explanation that they wanted to see it - as banal an explanation as Takeshi Kaneshiro’s girlfriend liking pineapples in Chungking)? Yet WKW underlines the importance of the Falls being a connection between the characters, irrespective of any explanatory context, by repeatedly fetishising the idea of the Falls, from the glorious, slow aerial shot of the real thing, to the cheap souvenir lamp which literally gives light to their life together.

But they never do reach the Falls together. Already we can see their fiery relationship, characterised by Leslie’s needy narcissism and Tony’s dark moodiness, as being severely unstable. When they break up on the road they are lost, a shot of a map flapping in the wind tellingly highlighting their relative disjunction with their intended destination (in more than one sense) as well as showing another disjunction - the map a tiny microcosm in the gulf which extends between the protagonists and home.

For, in the end, there is no doubt that Happy Together is very much a story about returning home. Yet even in this sense the film doesn’t choose to fully resolve itself (given that we don’t see Tony reach Hong Kong), but it is still clear that this is not a narrative which seeks to integrate the futures of the protagonists with the land of the Argentine ‘other’. Whilst we do see Leslie staying on in Argentina, there is not a sense of anticipation for his future (compared to the bristling potentiality and energy we feel in Tony’s closing visit to night-time Taipei - almost home).

Again, this went against the expectations (or desires) of those critics who expected more of a discourse on the immigrant - the spearhead of the Chinese diaspora. Yet, partly this can be explained by the very conditions under which the film was made; cast and crew in an interminable exile as WKW himself kept ‘starting over’ the whole idea of the film. The filmmakers were not looking to futures in Argentina - home was the destination they sought. And in experiencing these emotions, WKW managed to place them with honesty into the film, rather than trying to force issues.

After the abortive road trip, the movie shifts its location to Buenos Aires. Here, Tony works outside a tango bar, greeting Taiwanese tourists between long periods of waiting around slowly drinking himself to oblivion. As fate would have it, he crosses paths with Leslie, but already it is clear that Tony is thinking of home. Leslie pointedly displays himself with other men, whom he is prostituting himself to. But, very soon Leslie is making moves to impose himself on Tony’s life again. Tony, sullen and uncertain, is torn between rekindling their affair yet fearing that Leslie is only fooling with him - Leslie is not someone whom he can possess solely - and on more than one occasion a violent and frustrated side to Tony’s nature is shown.

Indeed, violence shifts the balance of the relationship in that the risks of Leslie’s lifestyle soon become apparent. When Leslie is beaten by a client for stealing a watch, Tony finally begins responding to his needs again, and their lives once more become intertwined. Eventually, after a severe beating Leslie repeats the phrase from the beginning of the film: ‘Let’s start over.’

At this point there is a shift, noticeable in that the film stock becomes colour, and the film chronicles this new start. Living together, Tony is still hesitant and unwilling to do anything more than take care of Leslie, yet Leslie continues to push and ask for something more. It is at this point that Tony’s actions revisit the idea apparent in the film’s opening shot: he hides Leslie’s passport. It seems pointless and petty, yet it also serves as a measure of the insecurity of his character: he cannot guarantee the permanence of the relationship, but he can hold something of Leslie - yet what of Leslie does the passport signify?

(An interesting but probably completely coincidental piece of trivia is that Chinese director Zhang Yuan - another filmmaker synonymous with adjectives like ‘hip’ and ‘maverick’ - had his own passport temporarily confiscated by the Chinese authorities early in 1997 due to the making of another ‘gay’ film, East Palace, West Palace (1996) - which was eventually smuggled out to be shown at the same Cannes festival as Happy Together.)

As Tony and Leslie spend time together, their relationship swings to and from platonic to near-sexual love, maternal nurture to sibling play. Yet, amongst this there are clear moments of intimate emotional connection - most notably when the pair tango slowly in their apartment. But this can’t last forever, particularly when part of Leslie’s position in the dynamic of the relationship is that of temporary invalid - his injuries clipping his wings.

Though there isn’t a lurch to a different narrative as might be found in earlier WKW, when Tony quits his doorman job (in an apparently uncontextualised burst of violent frustration no less) we are suddenly thrust into a different environment. Indeed, we hear a new voiceover in Mandarin as Chang Chen explains the sensations of a kitchen. We know not how much time has past, but now Tony is working as a kitchen hand in a Chinese restaurant, and a new character is in the core of the narrative. Chang converses with Tony casually, and he brings to mind the youthful spirit of Faye Wong in Chungking, another film where a new character brightens up the second half.

With extremely subjective focus, the rest of the restaurant and its workers is excised so far as detailed depiction goes, and we are aware that Chang will be central to the narrative. Yet this appears at odds with his easygoing innocence which doesn’t seem to fit the intense dynamic of Tony and Leslie. This dichotomy holds out in that he never does enter a clear intimacy with Tony, and Leslie never meets him. Just like Faye in Chungking, he is both an ‘independent’ and a vehicle for another character’s emotions and needs. This works as his character seems so carefree that he cannot help but be independent (and, just as with Faye, there is no clear cut ending of possessive union).

Chang’s presence in the film is counterpointed by the strain between Leslie and Tony. Tony’s suspicions over Leslie’s fidelity result in increasingly desperate and pathetic measures to keep him housebound, and the apartment soon becomes a tense and intense battlefield of emotions. Despite this, by voiceover Tony tells us that his happiest time with Leslie was when he was injured - a revelation which pinpoints the irony of happiness in the WKW world: there is no happily ever after, only a subjectively happiest point some time in the past. And this recollection of happiness can only be perfect as it is as unsustainable as Tony’s attempts at keeping Leslie in stasis. This begs the question, just how do we interpret this point of ‘happiest together’? Is it something objective in that both protagonists exhibited this happiness externally - as the narrative was unfolding? Or is it only something that becomes apparent in retrospect - a cruel trick of memory?