Grade: C+ | Genre: Foreign Summary: If you have the patience of a saint, this can be a rewarding film, but you have to make a lot of sacrifices to piece this puzzle together where the edges keep changing. Its tough to watch and not think about the film that could have been with a little reshaping through a clearer timeline and more focused plot. The problem with films that play around with time sequences -- dreams, time travel or simply frolicking back and forth through one's life -- take on the tough task of saying, "just follow me," only to gun the gas, loosing the bewildered moviegoer at the last stoplight. Its a tough device to execute well, and when a film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or 21 Grams manage to pull it off, they deserve a whole other round of kudos for landing the daring maneuver. Unfortunately, too many potentially promising films get hopelessly tangled in the web of time skipping, which heavily cuts at the director's ability to tell a coherent story. That is the case which afflicts Wong Kar-Wai's 2046. It is a compelling love story that keeps trying to extricate itself from the time chaos and the explosion of random women that keep cluttering the storyboard. Oh what a film this could have been.

After seeing the fascinating trailer for 2046 before languishing through Last Days, I instantly vaulted it atop of my growing list of must-see films. Its futuristic decadence was put on display like a blender full of the pulsing Blade Runner with the visual brillance of a Jeunet feature like City of Lost Children. Imagine my surprise when the movie almost immediately sweeps back from 2046 to humdrum 1967, only to linger there for the better part of the film. So for all those salivating over the trailer, don't walk in expecting wicked cool sci-fi fantasy. Those hopes were only meant for dashing. The first thirty minutes prove a highly confusing mess of scenes. We begin our journey in 2046 focused on a Japanese fellow in search of his lost love on a transport shuttling through time. It is an array of stray thoughts that come bombarding at you as you attempt to clutch onto them to keep your sense of what's going down from spirialing off its axis. Let go. These are thoughts that will flicker past your eyes later and will make more sense on the second and third go around. It's best to digest this film as one long stream of consciousness thought because their isn't much grounding it, and the story doesn't stay focused on one woman or situation long enough to really peg it as the central focus.

2046 Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Gong Li, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Ziyi Zhang & Takuya Kimura Director: Wong Kar-Wai View the Trailer (Quicktime) Related Articles House of Flying Daggers Alfie Kung Fu Hustle Email this article to a friend Independent Films DVD Club for Award-Winning Films Don't miss out. Join today! www.filmmovement.com Order "Sin City" today Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba $15.98, save over $14! www.amazon.com Give to the Red Cross Katrina's Victims Need Your Help. Donate Today & Make a Difference. RedCross.org Curves Buford Discover a Gym Where Women Can Change their Lives 30 Minutes at a Time www.curvesbuford.com

The forever ravishing Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) plays a streetwalker who proves she can out hustle the smooth talking Chow. He shows her a slap across the face only makes him want her more. As their protective walls start to melt, it almost resembles the dynamic between Hepburn and Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, two people who are strangers to love, knowing how to kill it but not how to keep it. Regardless of the relationship Chow begins, they aren't to be. Those he falls in love with are conveniently unattainable, and those who fancy him he can't be bothered with to which he bluntly tells them. The loneliness of his life just drowns him, as he hops from woman to woman, never making that connection his steel encased heart is bleeding for. The futuristic vision of the mythical 2046 is a story he is writing about a man traveling to this place in search of the one person he's ever loved. She is appropriately an android who can fulfill his every fantasy, yet can never feel love for him. He breaks himself over her eternal blank stare.

The core story is an interesting, empty love affair that offers little redemption for Chow. He keeps plugging women into his insatiable loneliness, only to write off the evitable crash and burn as the wrong time, wrong situation. He's not a character you can really embrace. He's more of a sad, over-the-hill playboy, too busy breaking hearts to make sure his is still alive and kicking. Hacking through the brush to get to the story is a chore. There is so much clutter lying about here in side tales of women and foreign places with very little to tie them back to our central thread. The time sequence flip flopping have you completely lost and doing your best to gain your bearings. Parsing through the chaos is a fulltime job while watching this film. If you have the patience of a saint, this can be a rewarding film, but you have to make a lot of sacrifices to piece this puzzle together where the edges keep changing. Its tough to watch and not think about the film that could have been with a little reshaping through a clearer timeline and more focused plot.