Forest is an allusion to frenzy, disorder, the notion that surroundings are moving faster than characters in the scene. The surface interpretation of Wong Kar Wai is that he directs without a completed script and produces fragmented stories, but there isn’t a particular need for discrete beginnings and endings to convey the sporadic movements of people within a city. Chungking Express is formally an art film, but it really isn’t that deep. That is, there is something beautiful about the simplicity with which Wong is able to distill the essences of humanity into selected cutscenes:
i. isolation: the way He Qiwu runs through blurred scenes, created through step printing. The shots are similar to the character himself, self-centered and a little off-beat. Hey miss, do you like pineapple? Repetition in several more different languages.
ii. love: there is a debate on whether love is synonymous with obsession. 223 is a giver, but maybe the story would not have been as romantic if the name of his ex-girlfriend was not May. 663 is a recipient, but habit may compel him to order chef salad again.
iii. dreams: faye does not really push the boundaries of a MPDG, but California Dreamin’ speaks for her in a way that her character cannot. She did not previously dream of becoming a stewardess, but overthinking is probably fatal in the same way not thinking at all is.
Chungking Mansions is a slightly separate entity: before I can switch on my rose-colored lenses, a curry menu is aggressively thrusted before me.