Tuesday, October 28, 1997
Hong Kong method happily wraps up unusual love story
FILM Timeless drama effortlessly earns Cannes award, despite
obstacles
By Stephanie Sheh
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
He was a stranger in a foreign land. And for months, director
Wong Kar-Wai grappled with unions and production houses in Buenos
Aires to complete his latest work "Happy Together," a Hong Kong
film made in Argentina.
Set and shot in Buenos Aires but ultimately made in the same
Hong Kong spirit as Kar-Wai’s previous films like "Chungking
Express," "Happy Together" won Kar-Wai the Best Director award at
the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
Both director and crew were surprised when their film was
honored at Cannes because competing in the festival was the
furthest thing from their minds.
"I am still cutting the films two weeks before the screening,
and everybody’s scared," Kar-Wai reveals. "In fact, we are the last
film showing in the festival, so we don’t have time to be thinking
of awards."
They were just busy trying to get the film shown. The movie, a
love story between two men, was subject matter Kar-Wai had never
dealt with before.
"I never made the film about two men," Kar-Wai says. "I worked
with these two actors (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Leslie Cheung
Kwok-Wing) before and I always thought, ‘They have great
chemistry.’"
Although Kar-Wai agrees that in the last two or three years
there have been more Asian films about gay relationships, Kar-Wai
insists that his film is different.
"Most of these films treat the gay characters as a joke,"
Kar-Wai says. "Sometimes they’re just too aggressive, or they take
sides; ‘I’m gay. You’re not gay so I hate you. You hate me.’ And I
don’t enjoy films like this."
However, Kar-wai says that "Happy Together," which was inspired
by Manuel Puig’s novel "Buenos Aires Affair," is not necessarily a
gay film but rather a film about human relationships. The filmmaker
feels that the story could just as easily take place between a man
and a woman, or two women.
The story begins where most films end. The film does not explore
how the two characters, Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing, meet, but
rather delves into what occurs after the couple is already
together.
"The normal love story will end it where we start," Kar-Wai
says. "They would rather talk about (how) they met and how they
fall in love and how they decide to live together and how they want
to go away from Hong Kong to have their new life. And normally the
love story will end in that point, but we start from that
point."
Using the bold and experimental film-making style that he is
known for, Kar-Wai divided the film into three parts, the first
being in black and white.
"The first part, to me, is the past," Kar-Wai says. "Because
normally to me there is no past. Past is presented as a flashback,
which is from a certain character’s point of view. But to me, I
wanted to show (the) past as very objective."
Once the present stage of the film begins, the scene changes
from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires, where most of the film takes
place.
"Their staying in Buenos Aires is to me like an exile or like a
dream," Kar-Wai explains. "There is no reference of time. It can be
one year, six weeks or six years. And there is no reference of
space because the room can be in Buenos Aires or the room can be in
Hong Kong."
Much of the shooting also took place in Buenos Aires, where the
cast and crew were originally scheduled to stay for six weeks.
However, problems with the production house, unions and national
strikes dragged their stay out to four months.
An Argentine filmworkers’ union interfered because most of their
members only work nine hours a day for five days a week.
"For us, because of the schedule of the actors, we have to work,
like, seven days a week, 18 hours a day," Kar-Wai explains. "And
they thought it was a joke."
Additional difficulties arose because during their stay, three
other Hollywood productions were shooting in Buenos Aires at the
same time. "Happy Together" had to share resources with "Tango
Lessons," "Evita" and "Seven Years in Tibet."
"All the equipment went to these productions, and if we need an
extra camera, they would say, ‘Go ask Brad Pitt. You know … all
the equipment went with Brad Pitt.’" Kar-Wai recalls. "And they
would ask, ‘Why don’t you use that scene because that location is
(where) Madonna is singing in that balcony. Why don’t you use that
balcony?’"
But Kar-Wai managed to complete the film with the help of
several members of the Chinese community in Argentina and the hard
work of his loyal crew.
"I think we just work like a band, a group of musicians,"
Kar-Wai says. "We’ve been playing together for years, and sometimes
if we have a new member it takes time to tune in to know each
other. But (it is not) impossible to work with new people, but it
depends on luck, and it depends on time."
A large part of getting the movie finished involved employing
the way they make movies in Hong Kong.
"I think because of the way we work in Hong Kong, we tried to
apply this method in Buenos Aires. I think we made the film with
the same spirit as "Chungking Express," finally (focusing on) the
idea (of the film), and we just forget about the union, forget
about the production house, forget about everything. We were just
doing the way we did it in Hong Kong, just shooting with our
permit."
FILM: "Happy Together" opens Friday.
Kino International
Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing (left) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai star in
director Wong Kar-Wai’s film "Happy Together."