DVD Review: ASHES OF TIME REDUX

Written and directed by Wong Kar-wai


Ou-yang Feng: Though I’d lived here a long time, I’d never really looked at the desert.

Not all that stems from economic crisis is bad. When one such crisis struck Hong Kong in 1999, a warehouse went bankrupt and all who had items stored there needed to collect their belongings before morning. This is where the original footage of Wong Kar-wai’s ASHES OF TIME was kept. When the footage was picked up, it was found in pieces and needed to be put back together again. From this process, ASHES OF TIME REDUX was born. Over the course of a few years, the original footage had been restored so that China’s most prolific contemporary director could recut the film and present it officially for the first time to international markets. Fourteen years after its initial release, it is most certainly a welcome return.


ASHES OF TIME REDUX is a lonely film set against a backdrop so colorful and so lush that it feels as though it is both surrealistically unreal and painfully serious all at once. The experience is entirely engrossing and delightfully stimulating, forcing the viewer to face a loneliness that it would ordinarily turn away from. Ou-yang Feng (Leslie Cheung) kills for money. He gives you the chance to erase elements from your life that you don’t have the courage to take care of yourself. He lives a modest existence alone in the desert and waits for the world to come to him. And while he aids others to forget their pasts, he holds on tightly to his painful past with faithful fervor. The characters that come into his life are all kept at a reasonable distance and all leave him practically crushed by the walls that surround him. His tiny shack is certainly the coldest spot in this vast desert. It all comes together like a dream or a fable where no one perspective is right except the one from behind the camera.


The redux edition features a new score recording by Yo-Yo Ma, new act breaks added in by Kar-wai himself and a breathtaking restoration of Christopher Doyle’s extravagantly coloured cinematography. Now available to won, it has been packaged with a scant number of special features but while it may not offer much, what it does is plenty satisfying. A fifteen-minute “making of” features interviews with Kar-wai, Doyle and key members of the cast, like Kar-wai regular, Tony Leung. The interviews are drawn from the redux edition’s press tour at the Cannes film festival, where it played outside competition upon its completion. There is also a moderated Q&A with Kar-wai in New York. While Kar-wai may come off as pretentious to start, as he sits indoors with his sunglasses covering his eyes, all apprehension is dispelled when he speaks. This is an intelligent man with a deep appreciation for film and for the craft that went into this particular work. Furthermore, he appreciates his admirers and shares in their love for this film.


Watching ASHES OF TIME REDUX is like watching a modern and twisted interpretation of Shakespeare. The subversion of the characters and their larger meanings is playful but always mindful of the depth needed to bring the magnificent imagery to life. Kar-wai has said how difficult it was to make this epic, from its complex story to its elaborate wuxia fight sequences. It haunted him so much during the initial production that he broke from it during post-production to work on other projects. After so many years, I’m very pleased that this past did not go forgotten.

FILM & DVD

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

Written by Wong Kar Wai & Lawrence Block
Directed by Wong Kar Wai
Starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Natalie Portman


Elizabeth: What’s wrong with the blueberry pie?
Jeremy: There’s nothing wrong with the blueberry pie; just people make other choices. You can’t blame the blueberry pie; it’s just … no one wants it.

It doesn’t get much more American than apple pie. I can’t say why that is exactly but that is what they say. And while blueberry most certainly isn’t apple, the reference to pie does make for an appropriate symbolic foundation for famed Chinese director, Wong Kar Wai’s first foray into American cinema, MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS. And he doesn’t just stop at pie. Kar Wai immerses himself in Americana, taking us on a road trip from New York to Missouri and Las Vegas, with shift work, gambling and heartache along for the ride. Sadly though, Kar Wai crossed the Pacific only to get lost in the Heartland for there is something else distinctly American about this film – it rests comfortably on the surface without much effort to go deeper and dresses itself up in pretty colors to hide it’s lack of profundity.


To solidify his position as a stranger in a strange land, Kar Wai casts singer, Norah Jones in her first acting role. Jones plays Elizabeth and Elizabeth is represented by the blueberry pie. It’s a perfectly good pie but no one seems to ever choose it when there are more traditional slices to be had. Blueberry is apparently the black sheep of pies, if you will. Elizabeth isn’t afraid to try something new though and so she adamantly chooses the neglected pie. Now, she need only learn how to do the same for herself. To learn how, she bolts across the country but while she searches for herself through countless sleepless nights, she finds character after character in worse shape than she. As she gets further and further from New York though, you know there’s only one place that makes sense for her to end up. It wouldn’t be a journey of self-discovery after all if you didn’t finish precisely where you started. Well, it would be if this were earlier Kar Wai but this is America, baby!


As Elizabeth, Jones is in a constant state of bewilderment. It is as though she was just born or just woke up to find the world has stopped making any sense. She looks uncomfortable, agitated, not unlike her stage presence from her earlier touring days. It isn’t clear whether this discomfort is her character or her lack of ability to develop one. It doesn’t help that she is surrounded by a supporting cast all on top of their game. Jude Law smolders as the man who serves her the blueberry pie. He is the guy who once got burned and hasn’t moved since. Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn are a couple on the brink of divorce. She has been hollowed by a disastrous marriage and he spends night after night numbing his pain with drink after drink. She is the nervous wreck to his wasted space. Elizabeth’s final encounter is with Leslie (Natalie Portman), a fast-talking, overly confident poker player. Portman has been better but still has plenty of tricks to teach Jones. Jones knows how to brood but her delivery is too often hollow. She is the mystery at the center of Kar Wai’s America but doesn’t inspire any desire to be solved.


MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS conjures a certain kind of mood. It captures the state of human damage that we all inevitably encounter at some point but only some figure out how to survive. Our initial instinct may be to run and we may do so by driving as far away as possible or staying still exactly where we are and never risking anything ever again. No matter what we do, the nights can get very lonely and if we’re lucky there is still pie to be had and someone to share it with. If we want to survive though, we must be brave enough to go home again. Now that Wong Kar Wai has gotten sufficiently lost, I think it is time for him to heed Elizabeth’s lesson and do the same.