The Stubborn Persistence of the Local in Wong Kar-wai

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2006

Department 1

Interdisciplinary Studies

Abstract

This article presents a critical analysis of the motion picture 2046 directed by Wong Kar Wai. In the film, an inscrutable opening shot denies the viewer any fixed sense of place. Adding to this spatial disorientation is an unidentified voiceover, not in Cantonese, nor even in Mandarin, but in Japanese, informing the viewers that in 2046, every railway network spans the globe and nothing changes. By all appearances, then, this is a transnational, postmodern landscape where every place has become indistinguishable from every other place.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: http://postscriptessays.blogspot.com/2008/04/home.html

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