Qi Liansheng made a particularly subtle comment on the Dream of the Red Chamber, saying that when Cao Xueqin wrote the Red Chamber, "two songs in one voice, two slips in one hand", "annotate him and write this, look off and wave with his hand". Specifically, on the surface, it is about one person and one thing, but secretly it is actually an artistic technique of writing about another person and another. For example, when the official Qingwenling was written in the Ming Dynasty, he was actually writing about Daiyu secretly; when he wrote about Xiangling in the Ming Dynasty, he was actually writing about Qin Keqing secretly. In my limited reading experience, no second author has used this writing technique with one hand and two slips.
When I watched "2046" for the first time, I didn't quite understand it, but this time I found that Wong Kar-Wai also seemed to have this second-hand skill. The simplest example is that the two characters played by Faye Wong are actually from the same person - one is the boss's daughter in real life, and the other is her projection in Tony Leung's novels; one lives in real life, the other Live in Tony Leung's fantasy. But it's actually two manifestations of the same person.
On the other hand, Takuya Kimura in the movie is the fictional "I" written by Tony Leung, and what Tony Leung did not say in his heart, he said it through Takuya Kimura's mouth. Kimura's subtle feelings for Faye Wong as a robot are the same as Tony Leung's feelings for Faye Wong as the boss's daughter. "Slowly I began to doubt myself. She didn't respond to you, not necessarily because she was slow, or because she didn't like you at all." These words came from Kimura's mouth, but what he actually said was what Tony Leung said in his heart. Kimura said that between 1224 and 1225, it was very cold and needed the warmth of someone beside him. In fact, he was talking about the Christmas Eve when Tony Leung asked Faye Wong to go out. Therefore, Kimura Takuya is Liang Chaowei, and Liang Chaowei is Kimura Takuya. These are two characters from the movie, but the same person.
The most amazing thing is that the three heroines in "2046": Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, and Faye Wong are actually the projections of the same person - that is Maggie Cheung in "In the Mood for Love". How to say this? Zhang Ziyi is Tony Leung's neighbor, just like Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love; Gong Li's name in the play is "Su Lizhen", and the scenes where they eat food stalls and separate in the corner under the street lamps have all appeared in the Mood for Love; Faye Wong is even more Obviously, Tony Leung and Faye Wong write martial arts novels together, just like Maggie Cheung in flowers. Therefore, at the beginning of the film, Tony Leung said through Kimura's mouth: "The passengers who go to 2046 have only one purpose, which is to retrieve the lost memory," but "no one has ever come back, and I am the only one." Why does 2046 represent lost memory? 2046 is the house number of the room where Liang and Zhang wrote novels together in the Mood for Love. In that room, Tony Leung spent the most wonderful time. He has always wanted to replicate this period of time, but he found the silhouettes of that period of time on three different women piecemeal.
I think Wong Kar Wai must have been consciously influenced by Cao Xueqin. In the movie, Tony Leung said that the novel he was going to write was a story about "a group of idiots and resentful women". Isn't this exactly the language of Dream of Red Mansions? No changes at all.
I recommended this movie to many friends, and the response was not very strong. It is generally said that there are too many characters and the plot is too chaotic. But after thinking about it, there are actually only two characters in the movie, and it's still those two - Zhou Muyun is still the same Zhou Muyun, and Su Lizhen is still the same Su Lizhen. The story told is a continuation of "In the Mood for Love". Some people say that the movie is very pretentious. But I especially like "2046", whether it is the many small details of the film, or this Cao Xueqin-style storytelling method. I've never seen a movie that can tell a story like this, it's amazing.
Yu Xiaokang
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