chungking express

It took me a while, but I'm finally writing about this. I hope I remember it all clearly.

All in all this film was so unique. It resonated with this fresh tone, it really was like nothing I've seen before. I'd say that I'm really not always one for the conventional movie, and with that statement it's pretty obvious that this film was perfect for me. There was no clear cut story line, no characters to follow through out the entire movie, and no real apparent understanding of where everything would end up. That's probably why I loved it though.



First of all, I really loved the way this movie was filmed. I felt as if each second of this movie could have been freeze framed and looked at as an individual photograph, one that bears much significance and tells an important story relative to the film as a whole. The colors that were primarily used in this film gave it so much more deep meaning, and the constant racy backgrounds added so much to the main notion of this movie (which I'd dare to say has something to do with the speed of life, maybe).

This film really was beautiful in the way that each being introduced had some connection with another seemingly random character. I'd love to see this movie again to gain an accurate understanding about everything (because there is much to be confused about), and to better connect the characters that do appear. It's interesting that most of these main characters do connect with one another, even if it is in a "six degrees of separation" kind of way. You'll have to forgive me because I don't recall all the characters names at this point, but the connection for some characters happened when you saw one in the background of a scene about the main character being focused on at a certain time. Other times it's something like one character is with another character who sees a third character and thus the first and third characters are connected. And for my least confusing example, several times in this film, a main character takes the role of a main character from another string, if you will, in the complex web of this movie's story line. For example, Faye becomes a flight attendant, and that guys ex-girlfriend was a flight attendant. And again this occurs with the series of "police" people. There's the women in the blond wig (I'm not sure she really is a police women, but she is an enforcer of sorts), and the two men. There are also two women that have the same bright blond wings. Yes, of course, how odd. But it's generally pretty obvious that all of this happens for a reason and it should be carefully looked at for deeper connections.

After viewing this film you could say I had an epiphany, but it's really not that exciting. Rather, I realized that we all have a lot to do with the lives of the people around us, whether we dare to recognize that or not. I feel that so much of what we do has a rather strong potential to effect the outcome or decisions of others. But a fact that the film brought out was this: yes, we do have a lot to do with one another; there is a lot of intertwining of lives, but in the end, in the very end, will we ever remember? Will we necessarily see the connection between ourselves and the stranger on the other side of the street? No, chances are we wont, and perhaps I'm trying a little too hard to see what I want to see, but I think that is what this film is trying to prove to the audience in some capacity.

Oh, and as for the song below (which isn't working for some reason, so pretend it's there) (Califorina Dreamin' by The Mamas and The Papas), everytime I hear it now, it reminds me of this film, but most primarily Faye who reminds me of being rash and having hope and seeing the beauty in the most obsure situations.