In Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express the frenzied ruminations surrounding lost love, loneliness, and irrepressible change are rendered impressionistically on the screen. The film is broken into two discrete stories. I will be focusing my discussion on a scene between Officer #633 (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Fay (Faye Wong) that takes place towards the middle of the second half. It is their first truly intimate moment together after an indeterminate amount of time flirting and engaging in charged small talk. Like two celestial bodies they are inexplicably drawn to each other but continue to rotate around one another endlessly, never touching. Here, they collide gently.
(Minute 6:57 to 11:33)
Ironically, the scene starts with the officer running to his apartment because he senses that his ex-girlfriend has returned to him. He is still infatuated with his former fling and Fay remains a strange curiosity. The audience learns of his motivation through a voice-over narration which is internally focalized. First, we see the officer running along the street from a high angle shot. Wong then uses elliptical editing, via simple cuts, to transport us to the officer’s apartment complex, up the stairs, and around the corner from his door. A slow-motion effect is employed as the officer approaches the door to heighten the anticipation for the desired encounter. Moreover, we hear every footstep clearly isolated on the soundtrack as if it’s in tune with the rushing of his pulse. As the door is thrust open the camera resumes normal speed and we are plunged into a flooded living room. The longing of the character is immediately deflated by reality, and the audience’s expectations are jettisoned along with the protagonist’s. Later when he actually does run into his former girlfriend in the convenience store, we are cued to the fact that he is moving on with his life by the subdued nature of his reaction. She no longer inspires a heart-pounding race through the streets, but just a simple smirk.
The next shot is of a lone blue flip-flop floating into frame from underneath the couch. This is an obvious allusion to Fay as she was the one who bought these and snuck them into the apartment. The juxtaposition of this shot right after the officer’s disappointment indicates that Fay might help fill the void in his home. She has already surreptitiously floated into his life. As he cleans up the water spillage, we see his image refracted and multiplied by the mirrors on the wall. Over this image his voice-over narration starts again. “When a person cries, you can simply give him a piece of tissue paper to dry his tears. But when a house cries, you really have a lot of work to do.” This anthropomorphization of the apartment is analogous to the officer talking to his raggedy dish cloth, the soap, and various stuffed animals in his apartment to stave off the loneliness. Since we never see Leung’s character cry in the film, the flooding becomes a symbol of his emotional state. The water is the tears he would cry if he allowed himself to feel his loss fully. Our inability to see him directly and only through the mirrors also suggests his confused stated of mind and the problems with “seeing” explored throughout the film. Major characters, including Fay, are often shown wearing sunglasses, and it is the lack of perception that unravels the officer’s relationship in the first place. He never realized that the air hostess would want variety in her food and subsequently in her men.
As the officer continues to clean, we get a close-up of his feet and the aforementioned flip-flops. Fay is subtly inserted into the narration again, and it is no surprise that as he moves towards the door to discard the trash, he startles her on the other side. She is holding a clear plastic bag full of live fish. She has brought them for the officer’s aquarium, but has to fumble as to an excuse when he questions her. The audience knows that she has been coming to his apartment for weeks ever since his ex-girlfriend dropped off a goodbye note and his keys at the Midnight Express. Since the officer already attributes his house and the items therein with a consciousness, he doesn’t seem to notice the fresh bars of soap, the clean dishes, the re-appearance of family pictures, the stuffed Garfield, new sheets, new clothes, and of course all the new fish. The reality of what’s been going on simply can’t break through his itinerant mourning. As Fay attempts a hasty retreat it is as though she is metaphysically restrained by her duplicity. She cannot move forwards or backwards and is forced to confront the object of her obsession. Before while she was in the apartment, he was an invisible presence and she was free to run around, jump on the bed, yell out the windows, and move without restrictions. In effect, she could be his girlfriend without him ever knowing, but the fear of actually being in a relationship and being circumscribed by someone else’s expectations terrifies her even though she craves intimacy- hence her liminal dilemma. Fittingly, when the officer attempts to help her into his apartment to rest her legs she surprises him and the audience by pushing his hand off her arm. It is the first time we are witness to the contradictions in her actions.
We then suddenly hear the officer’s voice-over narration again and he’s talking about his ex-girlfriend and his memories of massaging her legs after a flight. This time though he is massaging Fay’s legs, and he remarks that this is the first time he’s felt a woman’s legs since his ex-girlfriend left. He then asks Fay to stay for a while. He is starting to see the futility of holding on to the past and is entertaining the idea of being interested in someone else, even if he can’t bring himself to admit it yet. At this moment we see both the officer and Fay reflected in the mirror that previously only held his image. The narration is hinting at a possible romance if only they can see themselves honestly and not through misdirection.
The officer puts in a CD he finds on the table. Not coincidentally, the song happens to be California Dreaming which introduced Officer #663 at the beginning of this second story. What first starts out as non-diegetic music continuing from the previous story is revealed to be diegetically placed in the Midnight Express. It is Fay’s favorite song and she plays it at deafening levels whenever possible so that she doesn’t have to think. Straining to speak over the loud music, the two have their first miscommunication. When the song starts to play again at the officer’s apartment their thoughts are also misaligned. We hear Fay speaking in a voice-over narration for the first time. “I know his girlfriend doesn’t like this song at all. The CD is mine. I left it here a few days ago. I am starting to wonder if sleepwalking can be passed on to others. Wonder if I’ve been too nervous.” As the last words are spoken we now see Fay reflected and doubled by the mirrors in the apartment. We are focalized with her for a brief moment and the duality of her emotions is made explicit once more. We sense a desire that she may want to stop sleepwalking and awake to the reality of her feelings for the officer but this revelation is undercut as she falls asleep immediately after we hear those words. The song also abruptly ends at this instance and we are dropped into a startling silence soon filled by the officer’s voice-over. The officer sits down next to Fay and promptly falls asleep too. The voice-over informs us that he wishes he could wake her, but decides to let her sleep for some reason unknown to him. Sleepwalking is a communicable disease after all for these would-be lovers. Neither can wake up to their own longing.
The scene ends with a montage of shots. First we see them sleeping on the couch in the mirror, then a medium close-up of their sleeping faces followed by the officer now alone sprawled out on the couch with the curtains closed, and at last we see him again through the aquarium still alone in what might be the morning. This visual pun places the officer in the aquarium with the fish and intimates that he too is trapped in a box of sorts, unable to take control of his own fate. It also links him with Fay again and the fish she’s left behind. The focus shifts to the fish in the foreground and then we get the final shot of the scene—the vibrant, flower-patterned curtain partly drawn open so we can see the people ascending the escalator outside the window. The audience is returned to the outside world and we are reminded that regardless of this brief diversion people are still going about their business just like any other day. Even though we and the characters have been pulled out of the commotion for a brief moment, time moves on. Faye has successfully managed to run away this time, and they remain separate entities, unbowed by the forces working to bring them together.
Wong illuminates a steamy Hong Kong on the verge of political turnover. He manages to transform this ominous background into a whimsical reverie on human nature and the contradictions of love. Connections are easily lost and burgeoning romances parry almost instinctively. In the world of the film this makes all relationships tenuous at best. Yet, people still yearn subconsciously to find true love despite their own idiosyncrasies. The dissected scene is connected to themes in the earlier story and to the movie as a whole. Leitmotifs include running, sunglasses, mirrors, obscured windows, fish, food (appetite/hunger), discarded messages, and rain. The audience is allowed a peek into the lives of these characters through these sundry thematic lenses. Still, we are denied a clear resolution just as the characters are continually denied answers to their wandering. The audience doesn’t know whether Fay and the officer will ever be together or if they will find happiness in someone else’s arms. Nonetheless, we are happy to have met them and can navigate the curlicues of our own predilections with our eyes a little wider.
Filed under: Uncategorized
