By Devang Ghia • Jul 24th, 2008 • Filed under: Film Review, Movies, World Cinema, featured

Devang Ghia reviews Wong Kar Wai’s latest film My Blueberry Nights

If you haven’t seen a Wong Kar-Wai film before this is not one that you ought to begin with. In fact I would not recommend it anyways. This is not a movie; it is a collection of images. Images that are so artificial, it’s preposterous trying to stick them together using a feature-length film. I am certain it has been made on a whim; Wong must have had an idea, and he has started shooting before something concrete could have come out of it.

Perhaps realizing that he has a turkey on his hands, he tries to prop up the film with innovation and stars. Both of which are wholly unnecessary. The jerky motion, close-ups of sumptuous food as metaphor, long shots with objects jutting in near the camera and remaining out of focus are some of the things Wong has toyed with. As for the stars, consider David Straitharn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman in cameos they’d rather forget. Portman is perhaps the only one who goes a bit beyond what has been written for her.

I will now narrate the story for you, see if you can make any sense of it.

The setting is New York. Norah Jones learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her. She finds a café owner’s (Jude Law) shoulder to cry on. She ends up having a blueberry pie at his place and they bond in a very cheesy, forcibly romantic manner. But then one fine day, inexplicably, she whisks off to Memphis and works there as a waitress at a diner. There she becomes a witness to the squabbles between an alcoholic cop and his estranged wife. When that chapter gets over, she’s off to work at a casino where she befriends a compulsive gambler. Fortunately, the gambler’s bad sense doesn’t rub off on her and she remains as chaste and principled as she was. All this while she communicates with that old shoulder via snail mail. Before you remark “In this day and age!” there is a quick explanation, somethings are better on paper. Like a script for instance. And in the end you know she is going to go back having lived her life and boring us half to death.

This is Wong’s English language debut, but it’s no reason to cheer. In fact it looks like the work of an amateur, and not that of a winner at Cannes. The editing is one of the worst hack jobs I have seen in a long time. An hour into the movie and Norah Jones declares, “…at least that takes care of my sleeping problem.” What sleeping problem I wondered. As far as I recall, I did not doze off during the movie and there was no mention of a sleeping problem earlier! Similarly, in one scene, Law is visited by a woman called Katya. Who is she? Why is she? Is she an old flame? No explanation. The editing has done away with a few of the plot elements without bothering about continuity.

There’s another point I need to make. One technique, often seen at the movies is when all other characters talk about another character, but that other character is never shown to the audience. Think Bill from Kill Bill Volume I and you’ll know what I mean. Now it is absolutely necessary that this character is pivotal to the story, only then does his absence make an impact. Wong uses this technique twice in the same film, once on Jones’ ex-boyfriend, whom we barely get to see and for the second time on the gambler’s father, whom we don’t get to see at all. Both of which are mere reference points and utterly disposable characters. Now how are the viewers supposed to appreciate or anticipate their presence? They couldn’t care less.

Norah Jones is a much better singer than actress. She may have impressed the jury for the Grammy awards but its going to take much more before the jury for any film awards considers her. Jude Law, is so good-looking, he can get away with almost anything. Plus he has that British accent, which is always a pleasure to listen to.

Despite having read so far, Wong Kar-Wai completists are surely going to watch this film. Maybe in a bid to prove how ‘wong’ I am. Maybe I am, maybe I am not. But at least you can’t say you haven’t been ‘wonged’.

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