As noted in our Rep Report last week, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is presenting a week-long series dedicated to recent Hong Kong Cinema. This is a diverse series as evidenced by the two films I was able to catch — Wong Kar-Wai’s criminally underseen Happy Together and Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain. Both feature Tony Leung in a lead role but are otherwise polar opposites.
Happy Together is an exploration of the dissolving relationship between two gay Chinese men who came to Buenos Aries as vacationers and now find themselves stranded without enough money to return home. The film is more raw and intimate than any of the master director’s other work, but explores similar themes of loneliness, displacement and the inability to find happiness. Christopher Doyle’s incredible camera work switches from black and white to pastels to faded color, and creates a sense of stylized reality that is not only beautiful but helps propel the film’s story with its immediacy. Throwing traditional narrative structure out the window, this film is unflinching in its honesty and craftsmanship.
Confession of Pain is an ultra-modern, big-budget thriller from the same creative team behind Infernal Affairs, the film from which The Departed was adapted. This is popcorn fare, simply too glossy to ever feel authentic. The story also goes through a predictable series of twists and turns. But where the audience for Happy Together is surely limited by both its subject matter and challenging presentation, Confession of Pain has a much broader appeal. Not un-tasty, but it's empty calories. — Bryan Whitefield
