My Blueberry Nights

I first saw this in a theatre in Bangkok. I wasn't that impressed. James, my friend who saw it with me and who's also a big Wong Kar-Wai fan (I believe) wasn't that enthused either. But I didn't want it to end like that. I wanted it to be better than I remembered so I gave it a few years and watched it again this morning.

Visually it's awesome from the get-go. Wong Kar-Wai's trademark saturated hues and gratuitous use of slo-mo. The cinematography is fucking awesome. But the dialogue just wasn't working. And for a film that's pretty much all dialogue...that's a crucial element! I didn't want to look at Norah Jones for 90 minutes either. Where's Natalie Portman?

So, even though it was gorgeous to look at, I wasn't that hooked from the start. But as the film went on I started to dig it more and more. New characters came into play and eventually it just clicked. I like this movie now.

Natalie Portman does eventually show up. Ok, her hair is awful in this, but even bald she's still the hottest chick in the room. Goddman she's sexy. Especially rollin' in a jaaaag. Tantalizing.

Anyway, Norah Jones is a good actor. My only beef with this is the script. Since this is Wong Kar-Wai's first English film I can cut him a bit of slack, I guess. I love him for the space between words. The glances. The longing. The pain. The music. The colors. The slo-mo. The framing. The loss. The negative space. I don't particularly love him for the dialogue. Normally it's very spartan. And normally it's in Cantonese, so I'm only getting a subtitle. I don't know how it reads in its native tongue. I felt the English in My Blueberry Nights was just a little too cheesy or poetic at times. Sort of noir-ish, really. I might have loved it if they were speaking in Cantonese and I was reading subtitles. Who knows. Wong Kar-Wai is famous for writing scripts literally the night before filming, on set, or not really having one at all. But clearly this was nailed down prior to shooting.

So, I think this is better than I thought it was. But I'm looking forward to something better when his next movie comes out, which is about the dude who trained Bruce Lee and stars Tony Leung. That's gonna be freaking rad. The Grandmasters. Word.