Review and analysis of Happy Together

This was the last film I saw to feature Hong Kong superstar Leslie Cheung whilst he was still alive - for on the 1st of April, 2003 his life ended, apparently by an act of suicide, much to the shock and disbelief of his many fans. The three-times Wong Kar-Wai collaborator was widely acknowledged as one of Hong Kong’s greatest actors, and his performances on WKW’s films were highpoints in his career. This film now formed a link between the past when a talented man was alive and the present where a legend would still flower on celluloid.

In many ways, Happy Together also forms the obvious link between WKW’s mid-90’s hip-fests and the more measured approach of In The Mood For Love. Clearly, it’s the temporal connection (WKW made no other films between 1995 and 2000, apart from various advert projects), but I had always wondered how to bridge the gap between Fallen Angels and ITMFL - both dazzling movies (obviously), but one a paradigm of hip counter-culture surface mixed with emotional exhilaration, and the other a sumptuous reflection of past regret and the beauty of unfulfilled potentiality.

Happy Together, like several of WKW’s earlier works, starts with a self-contained concept, which the film expands on and refers back to later. In voiceover, in the first scene to feature the leads, we hear Tony Leung telling us that his lover, Ho Po Wing (Leslie Cheung), always uses the phrase, ‘Let’s start over.’ The pithy voiceover reminds us of trademark WKW, and in terms of mise en scene WKW uses classic economy in presenting both a thematic concern and a way of setting the film (but removed from film conventions as to the ‘establishing shot’): he simply shows close-up shots of the leads’ passports being flicked through to the background of airport noise. An Argentine stamp is then imposed onto the paper, the simple action setting down fact as irreversibly as Leslie’s ‘one minute friends’ speech in Days Of Being Wild.

The shots of the passports serve the dual purpose of emphasising travel by the two leads as well as hinting at a concept of identity, and how statehood interfaces with such an idea. Happy Together is, of course, a 1997 film in that it was made and released on the year Hong Kong’s sovereignty reverted to China - a concept arguably alluded to and foreshadowed by WKW before (particularly with Chungking Express’s expiry dates). WKW already provokes curiosity by setting the movie on the opposite end of the planet (prompting critics to ask ‘why Argentina?’), and the shots of the passports emphasise the crossing of national boundaries, as well as the political status of the protagonists as foreign citizens.

It is interesting to note that the designation of both characters as ‘British Nationals (Overseas)’ (as a helpful finger briefly draws our attention towards) was a non-automatic status. This is an instant reminder of the omnipresence of 1997 for Hong Kong citizens. The status of British National (Overseas) was a status which was brought in to replace the de rigeur status of British Overseas Territories Citizen, which would no longer be suitable for Hong Kong. The new status was only given on application, with the deadline as 1997. Understandably, many people took advantage of the opportunity to, potentially, have better migration possibilities. So, the question is, how are the protagonists ‘British Nationals (Overseas)’? Do the passports really denote their identity (or are they more tools of convenience in an ever changing world - like for the smugglers in Chungking) and, for that matter, does any concept of nationality or nationhood adequately denote identity for individuals at all?

WKW juxtaposes the stiff, rubber-stamped ideas of nationality against the following scene of gay sex. It is fair to say that the gay context of the film garnered great international (critical) attention for WKW (many critics were unfamiliar with him beyond what some of the less observant saw as ‘lightweight’ Chungking) - but it has also seemed to create problems in critics’ obsessions with politicising cultures and issues. Certainly, some saw WKW as not facing the social issues surrounding homosexuality sufficiently, or avoiding the portrayal of homosexuality at ‘home’ in Hong Kong. I don’t think it’s going too far to say this, but I think that these critics are missing the point entirely: and by doing so they are confirming WKW’s reputation as a maverick not bound by rules of politics or artistic expectations.

If WKW can be accused of casting the core (gay) relationship as dysfunctional, then we might criticise him were it not the fact that dysfunctional relationships are the staple diet of all of WKW’s films. And, furthermore, is it an unwritten rule that films featuring a non-mainstream, marginalised culture (as homosexuality still is, more so in Hong Kong but ‘even’ in the West) have to be subjected to a grinding nit-pick through ‘issues’ until, presumably, the filmmaker reaches a satisfactory conclusion - which in any case won’t reflect reality?

There is a laughable amount of headbanging exhibited by some critics over how WKW handles social issues - the strive for social redress, one is led to believe, means that we should make films where issues and gestures are paramount over lives and emotions, where political correctness is the only level of interface which matters - art by code.

Thankfully, WKW has quite a knack of side-stepping tiresome debates - he has insisted that Happy Together is not a gay film: it simply has gay characters. This manages to avoid the ghettoization of specific social issues in art - the trap of falling into ‘responsible’ filmmaking dictated by context. WKW flies in the face of dogma - and not for the first time if one notes, for instance, Chungking with its Indian underworld (where Brigitte Lin’s smuggler is almost a slave driver), or Fallen Angels with its no-hope misfits. If these scenarios were played to ‘artistic responsibility’ chances are the results would be such boring and worthy discourses on socio-political factors that nobody would even bother talk about these films.

Leaving aside all the critical hot air over ‘issues’, the film’s opening sex scene gives way to the pair’s abortive trip to Iguazu Falls. This beginning section of the film, with it’s black and white road movie style, sets out the troubled relationship of the protagonists. With an opening shot of the souvenir lamp used to denote the Falls, we have a locus which signifies the connection between Tony Leung’s character (Lai Yiu Fai) and Leslie’s Ho Po Wing (not for the first time, WKW picked the names quite arbitrarily from his own crew - and Lai Yiu Fai is actually now an established cinematographer co-shooting blockbuster Infernal Affairs for director and occasional WKW cinematographer Andrew Lau - a film which also features more-than-occasional WKW cinematographer Chris Doyle as ‘visual consultant’).

Indeed, it is not long before we are treated to a gloriously slow, colour overhead shot of the Falls. The shot is repeated near the denouement in a move which is classic WKW - as per Days with its repeated title shot of a scrolling Philippine forest, Fallen Angels with its opening scene replayed and contextualised near the end, or Ashes with Leslie Cheung repeating his ‘business as usual’ patter to an unseen customer.

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?

Eventually, the issue of Leslie’s missing passport blows out and, in a burst of violence, Leslie storms out. Suddenly, we find a vacuum where the intense relationship once was, and the focus then follows how Tony hides his pain from others at work, particularly Chang. In this phase of the film, the emotional build-up is used to portray a searing canvas of pain and regret played out across all aspects of Tony’s life. And again WKW plays and suggests with the idea of a rebound/new relationship, just as he did in Chungking.

But this time there is no magic solution to invade the life of a lonely heart. Instead, Chang has an almost over-real presence - somehow not a protagonist; somehow too solid - we can’t expect him to jump into Tony’s life. Indeed, there is no indication that he can fit a lover profile given that Tony doesn’t make clear to him his sexuality, and Chang remains ambiguous.

But we do learn more about Chang and his outlook. In a nod to Tony’s character in Ashes (explicitly referred to when Tony says Chang looks like the Blind Swordsman) Chang professes to having had poor eyesight as a child, with the result that he has honed his hearing faculties in compensation. This quirky contrivance allows an insightful probe into the nature of technology and recorded emotion, in that Chang carries a tape recorder in much the same way that one might carry a camera. This forms a continuation of WKW’s fascination with the possibilities of memory and recorded emotion (the camcorder in Fallen Angels) as well as the idea of (both remarkably direct yet extremely elliptical) communication.

These concepts appear in the scene (very clearly referenced to in the later, ITMFL) when Chang tells of his plans - now that he has saved up enough money to continue travelling - to visit the ‘end of the world’, Tierra Del Fuego. In response, Tony explains of a myth/legend: ‘I hear there’s a lighthouse there where people can leave their unhappiness at the end of the world’ - almost exactly identical to ITMFL’s whispering-into-tree myth. Chang then proffers Tony his tape recorder in order to record something to play at the end of the world. What follows is a scene both monstrously tragic yet also bizarrely comic as we see Tony trying to hide behind the tape recorder whilst Chang is on the dancefloor, yet Tony can find no way to hide his sadness and articulates it in the most humanely automatic manner by weeping into the recorder.

In many respects, this is a high point of WKW’s expression. We have a classically oblique and artful contrivance, yet this results in unexpectedly direct and effective emotion. This is at a point in the film when Tony is at a post-relationship crossroads; the future now in flux with the classic WKW existential dilemma taking centre stage.

Tony is also very alone. Whereas we previously saw him as one half of a couple, of which we could see both sides, now his pain is expressed unilaterally. Indeed, this representation of a lone individual emoting for and because of another person - who has now become absent or unreachable - is a classic WKW trope. This idea manifests itself in the memories of Takeshi and Tony of their ex-girlfriends in Chungking, and also in the separate pining of Michelle and Leon in Fallen Angels. This might be called unrequited love, but more generally what we see is a character expressing something, feeling something unilaterally; we see separation as deepening the profundity of our connection to the character.

In fact, Happy Together is one of the rare WKW films where he shows two people in a state of togetherness which is the ‘norm’ from the outset, and then how they break apart. Other break-ups in WKW films are either already set in place without any concrete, present depictions of togetherness (the cops and ex-girlfriends in Chungking, or most of the relationships in Ashes), or there may seem to never be a state of togetherness (Fallen Angels). Notably, in ITMFL WKW excises close depiction of the existing relationships by the device of never showing the faces of the protagonists’ spouses.

It seems that when we do see Tony alone, the film shifts to feeling more intimate and profound. WKW’s characters have always balanced on the cusp of accepting a relationship - they fear rejection, as WKW points out - and so solitude becomes the default position. Yet they also want love: they feel and want to have someone feel for them. Yet at the start of Happy Together it looks like WKW has shifted the default position. To see two lovers address each other with casual familiarity is almost a novelty in a WKW film (though it’s not unheard of: see Leslie and Carina Lau in Days). And though WKW does manage to refer to his characteristic themes and concerns (Tony’s insecurity harking back to fear of rejection; the characters, though together, also in a sense detached and alienated by their culture), the execution of the first half of the film feels inexplicably ‘less WKW’ than the second half. I use the phrase warily as there is no way of completely defining WKW (and it’s probably to his benefit if he ignores or thwarts such definitions), but there is a sense that when Tony finds himself alone we are closer to epiphany, closer to ‘waking up’ (as Tony refers to at the end of the film).

And whilst we gauge Tony’s loneliness, we see him cruising the streets of Buenos Aires to a slow Frank Zappa tune. The heartbeat of this city, this ‘other’ city, flowing just slightly too fast for us to integrate, to understand, but so very real. This ground level documentary style is at once central to narrative and character, yet also - like the sequence with the Indians in Chungking - half voyeuristic, half celebratory. Part of the culture is alien, and also self-contained. The commonality is sex in this instance, but whereas disparate strangers come together in their sexuality there is no indication of mutual love. Of course, this is no analysis of homosexuality itself, but rather of the alienation of the central character as he can find solace in a unifying culture of sexuality (despite being in a foreign culture of nationality), yet he finds just as many lonely people who ‘all look the same’: a ‘culture’ is not the same as love for a person.

There is now a palpable sense of motion in the film, from the giddy sped-up lights of Buenos Aires and also from the outlook and sense of direction which we finally see in Tony. A large part of this feeling is due to the filial theme which WKW, at a late stage, inserts in the film (a la Fallen Angels). Suddenly, Tony is at a phone booth calling his estranged father. Just as with Maggie’s final (crank?) phone call to Tony in ITMFL we do not hear anything concrete (or any reply at all). This is a classic WKW ‘test’ of suggestion, for all we have is a semi-introverted knowing smile from Tony - could his father be cursing him, or have hung up? Or are these the words of long-delayed reunion? Who knows - nothing is concrete in the WKW world.

However, this is enough to set Tony on his long-awaited journey ‘home’. The contrast couldn’t be greater compared to anonymous sex and loneliness, and so some critics came to the conclusion that WKW saw homosexuality as ‘wayward’ or ‘foreign’ - a dubiously simplistic critical analysis. More interestingly, WKW has poked at the real issue of just how homosexuality is perceived in society. There are no rose-tinted glasses. When Tony’s voiceover informs us of how there is a rift between him and his father - he allegedly stole money from work and did a runner - somehow we are not entirely convinced. We are inclined to fill the narrative here with an idea, cliched yet realistic, of just how a ‘straight’ family (from a ‘straight’-surfaced culture) simply cannot understand ‘foreign’ queerness. The struggle between generations, ideals, cultures, all contained in the hint that WKW supplies - by the very conspicuous act of omitting direct reference.

In fact, the manner of inference by omission, and then inviting audience input to colour understanding is a technique referred to and refined by WKW in his next film, ITMFL. And the latter half of Happy Together also resembles elements of previous film Fallen Angels in its mood swings, and its emotional dislocation from plot. For, at a point in the narrative when we feel Tony is finally in motion, what are really moving are thoughts. There is a (day)dream of home, somehow as fetishistic as seeing a waterfall as a locus for a relationship, yet we are not jaded by this. This one scene of Hong Kong in the movie consists of upside-down shots from a moving vehicle. Yet it seems so poignant at that point in the film - part alien (how long have we been in Argentina?), but augmented by the soundtrack of utterly everyday Cantonese radio talk - this feels undeniably like home, but literally as we’ve never seen it before (trust me, the scene doesn’t quite play the same the ‘right’ way up).

And the characteristic strength of WKW shines through once more, in that he brings a feeling to the audience by allowing us to share a character’s consciousness - without the need for self-substitution into the fabric of the narrative. We see Tony’s dream/fetish, and we feel his homesickness - and we understand this even though we might not possess the Hong Kong identity (the elusive concept probed at the very beginning of the movie) which one might imagine was necessary to understand such a feeling.

Tony takes up work in an abattoir, again with reference to his impending trip home - the hours put him on Hong Kong time - and the work has a simple mechanical, indeed, brutal quality which no longer asks him to interface (unlike his forced platitudes when greeting tourists earlier on). Pain still afflicts him as he realises he is closer to the point of final departure, yet there is also hope for the direction that he has taken. Eventually, he makes the ritualistic journey to the Falls on his own. Though he professes guilt for not having Leslie by his side at that point, it is also a watershed (no pun intended) in that he has reached the idealised locus of his relationship with Leslie, but to see it in reality, and in doing so to end the fantasy of the fetish.

In contrast, Leslie takes up residence in Tony’s old flat in Buenos Aires, and in cargo cult fashion he plays out the actions of the one he is now missing - cleaning the apartment, buying a stack of cigarettes. As a polar opposite to the hope we feel with Tony, there is a tired weariness to Leslie’s actions. He still clings on to the representation of the Falls in the souvenir lamp, and there is a tragic irony when we see in a close-up of the lamp two tiny and barely visible figures at the edge of the Falls, just as Tony arrives at the real thing to ruminate on leaving Leslie (...hinting that Leslie’s magnified pain - in the only extended sequence to feature him alone - may actually be a projection of Tony’s mindscreen of guilt).

It is then epilogue territory as we find Chang at the lighthouse at ‘the end of the world’. The camera is just like the lighthouse’s beam, ceaselessly circling - this is one place where we will not stay long, we will not be entrenched. Chang, too, feels loneliness, the distance of geography making him reach out in his feelings to those he has left behind at home. Comically, Tony’s tape recording is given delayed release - (just about) communicating emotion via a dilated separation of space and time. A point is then made of showing Chang returning to Buenos Aires on his way home, but WKW is in classic disjunctive mode - Tony is gone and, though they may be in the same city, Chang and Leslie never do cross their narratives.

With the following insertion of news footage reporting the death of Deng Xiaoping, we feel an undeniable desire to try to correlate the narrative with a ‘wider’ political backdrop. Many readings are possible, and WKW plays with this idea by using an identical device in ITMFL, with the insertion of de Gaulle’s visit to Cambodia. Part self-reflexive, part historical, these references (in recent WKW films) show a desire to contrast a character’s insular consciousness with wider social repercussions of change. But WKW doesn’t force this into the forefront of his characters’ lives: in both films Tony doesn’t show any sign of thought on the issues of politics and history. Such a digression gives a textural contrast and the opportunity for an audience to gauge just how such issues might or might not (or should or should not) interface with the story.

Pointedly, Tony ends in Taipei - the ‘other’ China - and WKW contrasts the news footage with the bustle of the night market where the news seems forgotten, irrelevant. Times are a-changing and Tony is on a new journey, possibly to ‘home’. Taipei is another waystation, and Chris Doyle’s photography epitomises the movement of this metropolis. Visiting Chang’s family food stall, there is a documentary-like slice of the everyday as Tony identifies home as something which allows Chang to be carefree. This analysis highlights just how previous WKW protagonists - often orphans of fate - have become so insecure and insular, how their fear of rejection gives them a steely exterior which rejects possibilities in favour of stasis. But on the other hand, such insecure characters are the source of the drama in WKW’s films: their existential dilemmas and epiphanies are all the more profound and moving as they illustrate the complexity of the ‘human condition’.

Indeed, the point-blank reference to home and family seems like another idealisation of Tony’s. What more could convince him that Leslie’s way is ‘wrong’, and that his path to uncertain reunion (or what could turn out to be final rejection, a la Days) with his father is ‘right’? Whilst there is a heartfelt earnestness and a sense of uplift as Tony moves towards home, there is also the feel that the ending - as uncertain and open-ended as anything WKW has constructed (complete with ambiguous Tony smile - he’s really the master of those) - consists of a mood which has the very effect of making us question its validity (a possibility lost on those critics who read Tony’s outlook as a pure projection of the director). Or, in other words, does the mood have to match a sense of whether Tony’s future is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Or do we take moods as they come - impermanent wisps of emotion which are not necessarily correlative with judgement values?

This strikes at the very heart of how Happy Together is received. Clearly, the values of home grow in importance for Tony, and we feel this with undeniable poignancy. And it would be easy to criticise the film as appearing to show this as the favourable alternative to staying in a queer relationship in a foreign land. Yet, arguably, judgements of ‘favourability’ are more in the mind of the character than any overriding notion that the filmmaker is trying to push. Just as with so many WKW films, the choice cannot be simply categorised as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - and the uplift generated by the act of choice, of breaking a cycle, is more important than the choice itself. The final shot fuses this idea of movement, aesthetics and mood - free of judgement on the imminent reunions, personal and political, due to occur after the film’s end.

The end provides a culmination of visual and sensory force - the creative energy of WKW’s direction, Chris Doyle’s cinematography and the input of production designer/editor William Chang - which has been built upon throughout the movie. Doyle’s lensing grows in the course of the film from a pared down monochrome road movie/documentary style to full colour bursts of ceaseless humanity. This reflects the transition from the literal ‘nowhere’ where Tony and Leslie lose their way on an Argentine highway, back into the urban pulse which is familiar WKW territory. Indeed, Doyle uses just about every conceivable technique, pushing saturation levels, contrasting kinetic jump-cuts with slow tracking. Time-lapse photography is used to capture the rush of a city, whilst slow-motion lingers on moments of reflection and intimacy.

Complimenting Doyle’s photography is William Chang’s editing, which takes the structure of the moving image and redefines its movement. Freeze frames highlight juxtapositions to isolate the connection between characters, whilst lowered frame rates lock individual moments into fractured time-spaces. It might have been fair to say it was ‘[WKW] business as usual’ on the visual side of things, were it not for the fact that the spectacle of the image finds perfect conjunction with the feel of the story - at times giddy and hopeful, at other times painful and mired.

Music usage is not only inspired, but also one of the most accomplished aspects of the film. While most WKW films have memorable music which evokes emotion by association and recollection, the music in Happy Together seeps into the consciousness beautifully, without being quite as prominent as in Chungking or ITMFL. Astor Piazzolla tangos provide perfect rhythm, straddling the gap between melancholy and beauty, whilst Frank Zappa makes an incongruous yet fitting bridge between modern rock and roll lifestyle and personal contemplation. The combination is handled maturely, and whilst ITMFL uses repetition determinedly, almost as a conceptual device, the repetition is subtle in Happy Together, and leaves you wanting more.

There is also a sense of maturity in WKW’s focus, the use of a stripped down narrative being a precursor to ITMFL. Western reviewers note that the movie is less ‘goofy’ than Chungking or Fallen Angels, but those two films actually engender (brilliantly) a sense of fun which is quite rare in the rest of WKW’s catalogue. The difference between Happy Together and, say, Days is that there is less a sense of mystery about the characters in Happy Together. Whilst WKW has always eschewed needless explanation, more recently his characters no longer defy description - which is not a positive or negative development in itself. This is maturity, of which further can be seen in ITMFL.

Speaking of development, the links which are provided in Happy Together to other works by WKW, past and future, are manifold. These include structural echoes, such as the repetition of a concept/image. Indeed, the epilogues in suddenly different settings, with the idea of leaving a secret/sadness in a briefly visited foreign land - these ideas are explicitly referred to again in ITMFL. The ITMFL connection is also apparent in the motifs centering around the characters: Maggie’s ‘we won’t be like them’ from the latter film being a development of Tony’s realisation in Happy Together that ‘we are all the same’ (poignantly [mis]embellished in the translation - with subtitles allegedly by Tony Rayns - as ‘lonely people are all the same’). Other moments also find reference in ITMFL, such as the occurrence of ambiguous telephone calls with no definitive reciprocation, and the insertion of newsreel footage.

On instants of referring back to previous works, one may note, for example, the slow motion of Tony eating a mouthful of rice compared to his coffee scene in Chungking. Or the belated poignancy of a filial theme as in Fallen Angels. Or Chang’s ‘never been there, [so it must be] good’ attitude to new horizons mirroring Faye in Chungking. Certainly, it’s true to say that WKW’s movies work as developments on each other; certain aspects jettisoned as time goes by, others studied more closely. In this film some of the hinted at tragic aspects of earlier works are looked at more closely, relegating the role of exhilaration (before it was excised altogether in ITMFL) to moments of defiantly contra-narrative mood isolation.

As to the performances in the film, Tony Leung’s is genuinely moving. He has an assured talent for blending ambiguity with seething, yet understated angst. There are some very subtle nuances, for example in Tony’s voice as he moves between nonchalance and vulnerability. At times, his character is called upon to stretch audience understanding, particularly in WKW’s imposition of a violent side to his character (perhaps an over-emphasised reading of ‘gay dysfunction’?), yet Tony handles this flawlessly. Even when we may question his motives for withholding Leslie’s passport, Tony is still convincing.

Though Leslie’s acting is great too - we expect(ed) nothing less from one of Hong Kong’s best talents - unfortunately his character often falls into something approaching a parody of the popular Leslie persona: needy, ungrateful, bitchy. Whilst these qualities have been built upon for some of Leslie’s most memorable performances (e.g. Days), there are scenes (like when he literally slinks out of a clients car, all celebrity smarm) where the feel isn’t quite as profound as usual. As mentioned before, the film seems to ‘open out’ with his character’s absence - a comment on how WKW has structured the influence of the character on the mood of the film, rather than on Leslie’s performance. Being the last film of Leslie’s I saw, there is a double poignancy in seeing two sides to his character: the childish face of the restless playboy as well as the grown man who portrays pain in frustrated regret - only too late.

Chang Chen, as has been said, is carefree and almost over-real. We don’t delve too deep into latent pains (his hinted at family problems seem all sewn up at the end of the film - a simpler template than Tony’s), or in any case, he lets little plague him to existential despair. Like Faye Wong, or for that matter, Jacky Cheung in Ashes, he is the paradigmatic opposite of the paralysed mourners who are often at the centre of WKW’s narratives. This creates a dichotomy which results in desirability (Faye is the ‘difference’ which a day can make in Tony’s insular life) as well as unreachability: a re-evaluation of the position of the self (as Leslie realises that he can never do as Jacky does in Ashes, he feels envy). These concepts are evoked and - in classic WKW fashion - not brought to oppressive conclusion, in that we don’t ever know if Chang is ‘right’ for Tony (we only have the symptoms of warmth which come from the solace he finds - much like the determinedly impermanent union of Michelle and Takeshi at the end of Fallen Angels), and the end has Tony temporarily settling for a stolen photograph of Chang rather than show them meeting on a bilateral basis.

It is telling, and also patently ambiguous, when Tony says that he will ‘know where to find him’ after taking the photo - this refers to both Chang’s real location; his ‘roots’ now he has returned home, as well as the image in the photograph which is a signifier of the person, or the memory one has of the person. In terms of narrative potentiality, this signals the possibility of a ‘reunion’ to add to all the others, or it may be a recognition that Tony realises the perfection of the unfulfilled - another ‘happiest’ time together which would be sullied by attempting to bring it to fruition. Again, desirability goes hand in hand with unattainability. This is an excellent example of the manner in which WKW can evoke two different possibilities keeping both valid and potential.

Where does Happy Together stand then, when viewed against WKW’s other work? On the one hand, the characters are still offbeat misfits, not the older, strait laced suits of ITMFL. Yet there is a sense of relocation: Tony does make the move back home - WKW characters are often in a wilderness, and so this move is rare (though it is evoked by epigram in Ashes). The family theme is alternately present or conspicuously absent in WKW’s films, and one may note that there are no definitive bonds of family in the sense of backstory in ITMFL and Chungking, yet the theme is apparent in Days, Fallen Angels and Happy Together. On one viewing, Happy Together may appear quite conservative in that homosexuality is not the dominant theme as the film brings itself to conclusion, although WKW could also be praised for not running the issue to predictability.

The film is also very sad. This foreshadows WKW’s move away from relying on exhilaration, although the final portion of the film is a sweet reminder of how WKW can render uplifting yet ambiguous hope. There is also less reliance on the philosophical/cryptic voiceover - another move towards ITMFL. In the end, WKW stays true to his core mode of expression in following a central character, never straying far from his viewpoint or the perceived viewpoint of others of him. We learn from this character all emotions: love, envy, pain, loneliness, hope, and we see how they have affected others. For Happy Together, most of the emotions are negative, as it is hard to understand the core relationship in the story because of Leslie’s outrageousness. Yet WKW avoids the reportedly mooted idea of ending the film with a suicide, which would have been the definitive ‘no way out’ scenario (arguably demonstrated by Leon’s character in Fallen Angels) - and would have caused overly tendencious ‘1997’ readings.

This ‘1997 film’, ‘gay film’, ‘art film’ has a habit of wrong-footing anyone who comes with preconceptions; expectations. On the handover, WKW has taken a deliberately distanced view: out of Hong Kong, avoiding clear projection of what will occur for the city. The death of Deng Xiaoping is both a beginning and an end: the end of an ‘old guard’ China which the rest of the world was not privy to, and the beginning of modernity - the econo-centric culture which Deng espoused brought to fruition by the (arranged) marriage of changing China with the always-changing, paradigm of Capitalism, Hong Kong. Yet WKW gives blank comment on how such a union will change China or Hong Kong. The death of Deng is just another inevitable event, just like the handover.

On homosexuality, the filmmaker must pick and choose facets to portray. One might view Leslie’s tantrums and Tony’s seething violence as over the top, except both actors are being asked to explore something within themselves - especially in the case of Leslie, one of the very few openly gay Hong Kong celebrities. In the end, WKW loves the dysfunctional relationship, whether straight or homosexual. That the film uses common preconceptions about homosexuality - cruising, anonymity, prostitution, violent encounters - says as much about the culture’s status as a still largely taboo subculture as it does about the filmmaker’s understanding. The result is inevitable depictions of anonymous street encounters, illicit transactions, a ‘hidden’ world. In fact, against this backdrop the core relationship must be even more precious - an oasis of mutuality in a sea of chance. No, WKW doesn’t show a ‘perfect’ understanding of homosexuality - but he shows the preciousness of human connection.

In one scene, Tony’s Buenos Aires cruising scene, it appears as though homosexuality is the norm. Yet this is only one moment, pieced from selected moments, where people don’t need to ask about sexuality, or to hide. In the end, Happy Together is not a movie which attempts to show a cultural advance - homosexuality doesn’t ‘become’ the film, it is merely a backdrop, albeit a very interesting one which earned the film a mainstream-unfriendly Category III rating in Hong Kong, as well as international arthouse interest.

And on the ‘art’ label which the style and subject seem to invite, WKW plays with such a perception using the tropes of art film as genre: black and white, different film stocks, self-conscious changes in how film recreates light and sound, distilled emotional ellipsis and enlightenment. Yet these mannerisms - WKW at his most dazzling and immediately noticeable - are more than blank suggestion, they actually contribute to the film itself rather than its genre or categorisation. To this end, the question of what is art seems sidelined - just as WKW seems hard to pigeonhole by genre, a label of worthiness like ‘art’ would also say very little about the film itself.

I like this film. It grew on me during the second half when I left behind ideas of how WKW might ‘handle’ the story. I should already have known that such expectation was unnecessary, irrelevant even. This is a film which is at once rooted in context - the point WKW reached as a filmmaker, public perception, politics, cultures - yet it is also a film of primary emotions that reach out and move. That is the one thing that matters, and the one thing you can expect from a WKW film.