Slowing down
At three hours long, Once upon a time in the west is not your typical movie.
A tale of two cops that takes it's own time, Chungking Express can also make you feel like you just sat through a three hour movie.
Leone's movie is all about tense moments and drama, Wong Kar-wai's movie is all about loss and longing. One uses Claudia's searing sensuality, and Bronson's smouldering intensity. The other uses Tony's serene subtleties and Faye's elfin charms. Nothing in common you would think not in theme, not in tone, not in style, not in plot ...
But what they have in common is a repeating motif, the harmonica tune in the first, and the Mama and Papas song 'Californian dreaming' in the other.
Watching Bronson announce his arrivals with a harmonica seems kind of contrived until you realize what the harmonica was about to the man with no name at the very end. And hearing the song California dreaming seems almost irrelevant until the end where Faye realizes her dream.
Chungking Express (translates to Midnight Express) is the name of a takeout that becomes the centre of two tangential love stories. Once upon a time in the West signifies the passing of the old (the gunfighter) and the coming of the new (the railroad) almost in the same scene. They are set far apart in time and space, but both movies succeeded in making me feel an almost palpable, achingly real sense of loss ... in one the scenes are almost maudlin, they're that grounded in the hustle and clatter of the hong kong experience. In the other, the scenes feels like they've been shot with sepia toned edges, it's that nostalgic a look at the wild wild west. Yet both succeed not because of their locales, but because the locales bring to life their inhabitants to the point where they feel they could belong nowhere else. And when you're kind of glad you had the time to get to know them real well, you know you've watched a really special movie.
A tale of two cops that takes it's own time, Chungking Express can also make you feel like you just sat through a three hour movie.
Leone's movie is all about tense moments and drama, Wong Kar-wai's movie is all about loss and longing. One uses Claudia's searing sensuality, and Bronson's smouldering intensity. The other uses Tony's serene subtleties and Faye's elfin charms. Nothing in common you would think not in theme, not in tone, not in style, not in plot ...
But what they have in common is a repeating motif, the harmonica tune in the first, and the Mama and Papas song 'Californian dreaming' in the other.
Watching Bronson announce his arrivals with a harmonica seems kind of contrived until you realize what the harmonica was about to the man with no name at the very end. And hearing the song California dreaming seems almost irrelevant until the end where Faye realizes her dream.
Chungking Express (translates to Midnight Express) is the name of a takeout that becomes the centre of two tangential love stories. Once upon a time in the West signifies the passing of the old (the gunfighter) and the coming of the new (the railroad) almost in the same scene. They are set far apart in time and space, but both movies succeeded in making me feel an almost palpable, achingly real sense of loss ... in one the scenes are almost maudlin, they're that grounded in the hustle and clatter of the hong kong experience. In the other, the scenes feels like they've been shot with sepia toned edges, it's that nostalgic a look at the wild wild west. Yet both succeed not because of their locales, but because the locales bring to life their inhabitants to the point where they feel they could belong nowhere else. And when you're kind of glad you had the time to get to know them real well, you know you've watched a really special movie.
posted by Subash at 3:37 AM
1 Comments:
In comparing the two movies together, you've managed to extract the essence of both movies and zero in on the core of the theme. A juxtaposition of two very different movies creates a binding tie.
My next move, to watch them both in a sitting fairly close to attempt to capture the essence myself. . .
Best Regards,
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