2046 - What Are Characters Made Of?
Thoughts On: 2046 (2004)
A hedonistic writer falls through empty relationships attempting to keep longing at bay.
I'm starting to realise that I'm not the biggest Wong Kar Wai fan. Whilst I really like In The Mood For Love and Chungking Express, I found Days of Being Wild testing - and 2046 more so. It is the collision of sweeping, intense thematic rumination, narration and abstract montage that ruined 2046 for me. I found no balance between these elements and, more so, no tonal coherence. With a rather boisterous style, one feels 2046 calling attention to its own meaning making process whilst it plays with rather inane characters. True it is that this focuses on broken people, but the presentation of their existential ailments and psychoses fractures intimacy. In The Mood For Love works so well because, for the most part, it allows the spectator to observe and manage the distance they keep from characters. This interplay between character and spectator facilitates a sometimes intense intimacy, which in turn opens up the possibility of us understanding the meaning that characters are in the process of expressing. 2046 demands closeness and sympathy by consistently presenting characters' psychological profiles with intellectual montage and poetic narration. Presenting themselves as such, characters - in particular the protagonist - has one lose sight of the wider discourse of the film. With an overt interplay between character and spectator, something is spoilt. This result is maybe paradoxical, but it is - at least for myself - a product of incongruous characterisation and style. In such, 2046 in fact makes clearer an ontological problem of 'character' on film. How is a character constructed?
Characters are bound to story in the simplest sense. They are an expression of, and means of exploring, a world, a certain time and a certain place. However, in being bound to story, characters can also be seen to be a creation of it; of a constructed world, time and place presented by a film. In addition to this, characters can be seen as agents of drama. That is to say, they perform, they act, they do. In this sense, they are a manifestation of drama and therefore are created by it. All does not end here though. There are a selection of various elements of film that we could see being used to build character, to inform their construction and place in a narrative. Let us try to make a list of some. We can start with a dated, somewhat structuralist, perspective and suggest that characters are created by and for the plot. Such suggests that characters allow a narrative to succeed and transform, and therefore exist for certain plot beats to be hit and meandered through. This is a variation of describing a character via drama, and a means of specifying their role in the manipulation of a cause-effect chain. Next, one can consider character to be an expression of theme. Such ties character to meaning, their role being consequently defined by discourse on emotionally and existentially pertinent subject matter. In opposition to this, a character can be constructed by spectacle, which is to say, they can be constructed to be looked at, or to manifest events to be looked at. And the last key element of narrative that builds and effects characters that I'll pick up on is style or form.
This is something that I hadn't considered much until watching 2046 though this is a clear and important means of constructing character. Form defines how a character may be represented, and so the character of a style can become an aspect of character. This most clearly happens in Godard films. The suave, energetic, fractured and chaotic style of shooting, editing and producing sound montage impacts the way in which we perceive and understand characters; they become agents of chaos, suave and energetic yet fractured. In 2046, I believe we see the style and theme that builds characters at odds with one another. In such, there is an overt intellectualism about the abstract montage, costume and set design and cinematography. Alas, theme defines character by sensitivity. This is a film, much like In The Mood For Love, about longing and loss, about impending eroticism that is never fulfilled. The crisp lighting and textured set design of In The Mood For Love, its slow motion and crowded framing, its silence, distance and stillness, all inform the sensual side of character, defining them as feeling entities. Theme aids here in adding depth and substance to the prolong feeling we watch unfold on screen - as we do in great impressionist works by the likes of Bresson and Epstein. 2046 builds characters, with form and theme, as thinking and feeling entities. Theme imbues them with emotion, form with cognition. However, the constant thinking of characters bears an ambiguity that lends itself to insipidness. Characters think their feelings in a strange and dry manner. I grew tired of this thought-feeling rather quickly. Again, the reason for this comes down to the construction of character. Characters feel polarised and technically messy. They then fail to evoke or express as they are intended to; they are impeded by over-manipulation.
There is certainly more that could be explored here, but this is difficult work as the process of character construction is so mysterious and, more so, the manifestation of meaning through them is highly complex and contingent. I am then left to report that 2046 did not work for me on a level of character for reasons I have tried to outline. But, maybe I need to watch the film again - which I won't be rushing to do any time soon. That said, what the film has certainly illuminated for me is the depth and complexity of character construction. It is difficult to make sense of, but characters are story, plot, theme, drama, spectacle, form and more.
A hedonistic writer falls through empty relationships attempting to keep longing at bay.
I'm starting to realise that I'm not the biggest Wong Kar Wai fan. Whilst I really like In The Mood For Love and Chungking Express, I found Days of Being Wild testing - and 2046 more so. It is the collision of sweeping, intense thematic rumination, narration and abstract montage that ruined 2046 for me. I found no balance between these elements and, more so, no tonal coherence. With a rather boisterous style, one feels 2046 calling attention to its own meaning making process whilst it plays with rather inane characters. True it is that this focuses on broken people, but the presentation of their existential ailments and psychoses fractures intimacy. In The Mood For Love works so well because, for the most part, it allows the spectator to observe and manage the distance they keep from characters. This interplay between character and spectator facilitates a sometimes intense intimacy, which in turn opens up the possibility of us understanding the meaning that characters are in the process of expressing. 2046 demands closeness and sympathy by consistently presenting characters' psychological profiles with intellectual montage and poetic narration. Presenting themselves as such, characters - in particular the protagonist - has one lose sight of the wider discourse of the film. With an overt interplay between character and spectator, something is spoilt. This result is maybe paradoxical, but it is - at least for myself - a product of incongruous characterisation and style. In such, 2046 in fact makes clearer an ontological problem of 'character' on film. How is a character constructed?
Characters are bound to story in the simplest sense. They are an expression of, and means of exploring, a world, a certain time and a certain place. However, in being bound to story, characters can also be seen to be a creation of it; of a constructed world, time and place presented by a film. In addition to this, characters can be seen as agents of drama. That is to say, they perform, they act, they do. In this sense, they are a manifestation of drama and therefore are created by it. All does not end here though. There are a selection of various elements of film that we could see being used to build character, to inform their construction and place in a narrative. Let us try to make a list of some. We can start with a dated, somewhat structuralist, perspective and suggest that characters are created by and for the plot. Such suggests that characters allow a narrative to succeed and transform, and therefore exist for certain plot beats to be hit and meandered through. This is a variation of describing a character via drama, and a means of specifying their role in the manipulation of a cause-effect chain. Next, one can consider character to be an expression of theme. Such ties character to meaning, their role being consequently defined by discourse on emotionally and existentially pertinent subject matter. In opposition to this, a character can be constructed by spectacle, which is to say, they can be constructed to be looked at, or to manifest events to be looked at. And the last key element of narrative that builds and effects characters that I'll pick up on is style or form.
This is something that I hadn't considered much until watching 2046 though this is a clear and important means of constructing character. Form defines how a character may be represented, and so the character of a style can become an aspect of character. This most clearly happens in Godard films. The suave, energetic, fractured and chaotic style of shooting, editing and producing sound montage impacts the way in which we perceive and understand characters; they become agents of chaos, suave and energetic yet fractured. In 2046, I believe we see the style and theme that builds characters at odds with one another. In such, there is an overt intellectualism about the abstract montage, costume and set design and cinematography. Alas, theme defines character by sensitivity. This is a film, much like In The Mood For Love, about longing and loss, about impending eroticism that is never fulfilled. The crisp lighting and textured set design of In The Mood For Love, its slow motion and crowded framing, its silence, distance and stillness, all inform the sensual side of character, defining them as feeling entities. Theme aids here in adding depth and substance to the prolong feeling we watch unfold on screen - as we do in great impressionist works by the likes of Bresson and Epstein. 2046 builds characters, with form and theme, as thinking and feeling entities. Theme imbues them with emotion, form with cognition. However, the constant thinking of characters bears an ambiguity that lends itself to insipidness. Characters think their feelings in a strange and dry manner. I grew tired of this thought-feeling rather quickly. Again, the reason for this comes down to the construction of character. Characters feel polarised and technically messy. They then fail to evoke or express as they are intended to; they are impeded by over-manipulation.
There is certainly more that could be explored here, but this is difficult work as the process of character construction is so mysterious and, more so, the manifestation of meaning through them is highly complex and contingent. I am then left to report that 2046 did not work for me on a level of character for reasons I have tried to outline. But, maybe I need to watch the film again - which I won't be rushing to do any time soon. That said, what the film has certainly illuminated for me is the depth and complexity of character construction. It is difficult to make sense of, but characters are story, plot, theme, drama, spectacle, form and more.
