Days of Being Wild, Look For Love Elsewhere.. review

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A signature Wong Kar Wai film. Full of passion, grief and melancholy, Bikas Mishra writes

Along with 'In The Mood for Love' and '2046', 'Days of being Wild' forms a sort of trilogy. Stories of pain, loss and unfulfilled love. A film that fills one with a sense of melancholy.

I don't know why love always remains elusive in Wong Kar Wai films but definitely his signature dark, neon lit and a little gloomy scenario makes one ponder if true love always escapes us.

Days of Being Wild is about relationships. Characters keep running after something elusive throughout the film. The protagonist Yuddy, leaves his love behind to find his real mother. His favorite fable truly describes his predicament, "I've heard that there's a kind of bird without legs that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired. The bird only lands once in its life... that's when it dies."

Yuddy is a lover boy who has affairs with a box office girl Lizhen and an escort. Wong portrays him as a master of the art of wooing girls into relationships and to his bed. Look at the way Yuddy impresses Lizhen "16th... April the 16th. At one minute before 3pm on April the 16th, 1960, you're together with me. Because of you, I'll remember that one minute. From now on, we're friends for one minute. This is a fact, you can't deny. It's done"

Yuddy is devastated to learn that he's not the real son of the woman whom he consider his mom. However in the fear of being deserted by him she's not divulging the names of his real parents. He takes on the search for his real parents as his sole aim of life. His quest sets him on a fatal journey to Philippines. Yuddy's indesicion keeps him from long lasting relationships. The box office girl Lizhen leaves him for his lack of commitment. While he shows the door to the showbiz girl, Mimi for being possessive.

However, none of them could ever get rid of him. Lizhen, waits for him all night below his apartment. She has no one to talk to. Night cop Tide, offers to share her grief only to sail away later as a sailor. While Yuddy's friend Zeb falls for Mimi.

Look at the irony of lives of each of the characters. Yuddy's godmother leaves him for an old man. Yuddy leaves everyone in search of his real mother. Lizhen finally finds a friend in the cop, who becomes a sailor.  And Zeb, who loves Mimi sells his car to offer money to Mimi, so that she could go the Phillipines in search of Yuddy.

A signature Wong Kar Wai film. Full of passion, grief and melancholy. Nothing describes the plight of love better than the fable retold that Yuddy learns only when it's too late "I used to think there was a kind of bird that, once born, would keep flying until death. The fact is that the bird hasn't gone anywhere. It was dead from the beginning."