happy together?
by eli and zel
A couple of years ago, my best friend and I watched the Wong Kar Wai movie “Happy Together” together. Or rather, we watched it in our own corners of a city new to both of us and spent the post-movie talking hours into the night about how beautiful this piece of art made us feel. We had always reviewed stuff together, and this seemed the perfect opportunity to write one.
Today, as I rewatched this movie, it only felt right to put the review here.
If I wrote this one today, I would approach it very differently, I think. Especially tonally. For a movie that influenced our emotions so much, in retrospect, I am very surprised how technically we wrote it. Heck, we might have written it entirely in first person. I might just do that some other day.
Rough love. Steady hate. Oscillating between the two, an ambivalent relationship that brims with more tension as external forces come into the picture.
Happy Together, a 1997 film, depicts the on-and-off relationship of Lai Yui-Fai (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung), two Chinese men who hit the Argentinian roads to see the falls at Iguazu. The movie has now been widely acclaimed as a highlight of LGBTQ cinema and screened in multiple film festivals, eventually winning Wong Kar Wai the Best Director award at the Cannes and effectively catapulting him to international prominence.
The two characters are stuck in a seemingly never-ending cycle of love and hate, the flames of every breakup being fanned by Fai's possessiveness and Po-Wing's promiscuous infidelity. It's a fantastic intersection of Wong Kar Wai's recurring themes of nostalgia and one of the most heart-wrenching romance stories ever told. Equally appreciable as the direction is Christopher Doyle's adept cinematography that makes the movie so overwhelmingly intense.
Unlike his other films where the characters yearn for something they can't have, here, two characters recognise having something they both don't want all the time. It gets loud and aggressive and bares its ugly fangs. When they're together, they argue and tear each other apart; but when they're apart, they grieve the separation with their lonely cries. "Let's start over" becomes Po-Wing's dreaded line, and Fai too goes along—for, amidst all the push-and-pull, they have moments of being happy together: the iconic tango scene in the kitchen is unforgettable. But the movie keeps going in circles, evident from several shots, and we keep doubting if they really were happy enough.
The two own a lampshade with the Falls at Iguazu painted on it (which ends up shown on screen countless times that, in all its blurred glory, it's a character in its own right), and we see the Falls twice—once at the beginning of the movie and then again at the climax. The tumultuous chaos of the Falls reflects not just the characters' romance but also hints at the viewers' experience—structural brashness at its finest.
Equally formless are the visuals, most of them blurred and going back and forth between colour and black-and-white. One can't help but be surprised by this very subtle change throughout the movie. It even serves as a device by itself—told through Fai's perspective, both the film and his life seem to slowly gain colour with Po-Wing's temporary presence. The only time this doesn't hold true is the very first scene: a passionate sex scene, one of the very first openly adult scenes that Doyle had been permitted to shoot.
The cinematography takes on a more intense aura due to this added layer of perspective. One can't help but feel that we're looking through Fai's memories or perhaps the story of Fai being recounted to someone else, either his own estranged father to whom he writes a letter in the second half. It's emphasised by the lack of detail in most shots and the lingering slow scenes like a hug or when Fai lights Po-Wing's cigarette with his burning one. Most of the shots in the movie are grained up, very noisy and full of contrasting warm and cold colours. At times, we even see the shots glitching, which not only adds to the beautiful outstanding aesthetics but also serves to the disconnectedness we feel from all the characters and the ambience, everything but Fai and his feelings, just like he feels throughout the movie.
The story is made more Fai-centric by depicting him as the narrator and also keeping us away and distant from Po-Wing, who we eventually start to hate. Po-Wing, often unable to conduct himself well, acts submissive and friendly to Fai. But we also see Po-Wing beating Fai frequently and mistreating him whenever he becomes strong enough to do so. Po-Wing seemingly uses his opportunistic personality to exploit Fai and all his savings; he has previously expressed his need for money to return to Hong Kong as well. The audience is made to relate so much to Fai that we do not dislike him when he acts possessive about Po-Wing, instead, we support this raw desire of his.
The score adds to this. Caetano Veloso’s Cucurrucucu Paloma and Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Apasionado are immortalised in some of the more iconic scenes, the taxi scene and the tango scene respectively, and are so closely tied to the chaos of the lovers' interactions. Meanwhile, Chunga's Revenge, a Frank Zappa song, plays throughout the movie, its recurring loud guitar fanning the volatile nature of the two characters' interactions.
The movie borrowed its English title from the song it features, a 1967 song by The Turtles, which was covered and recorded by Danny Chung for the soundtrack. We particularly found the title ironic—after all, the two are rarely "happy" or "together". But to Wong Kar Wai:
Happy together can apply to two persons or apply to a person and his past, and I think sometimes when a person is at peace with himself and his past, I think it is the beginning of a relationship which can be happy, and also he can be more open to more possibilities in the future with other people.
But in yet another circumstance of finding authorial intent lacking, we speculate differently. It might as well be an acknowledgement of all the momentary happy moments the protagonists share.
Part of the New Queer Wave of the 90s, the movie does not use the usual tropes of queer media, with its plotline about coming out of the closet or depicting the coquettishness of a typical relationship. Instead, Wong Kar Wai presents to us a very grounded and raw experience of two gay men, set in a place of little to no suppression of their existence. (A 2016 paper notes that Argentina "has one of the world's most comprehensive transgender rights laws"). But the setting serves not just as a setting of freedom but also to indicate the part of people that they can't help but carry with them wherever they go. In Kwan Pun-Leung and Amos Lee’s exceptional documentary Buenos Aires Zero Degree (1999) about the making of Happy Together, Wong notes, "I couldn’t make a film in Hong Kong in 1997, so [made] a film avoiding Hong Kong."
For all its initial criticism about the lack of plot and structure, one can't help but remember the plot and not speculate. The introduction of Chang, a third pivotal character, presents a character that the viewers can finally find themselves in. We almost relate to this boy in the kitchen, who looks into the two protagonists' lives, craving clarity like us. He only ever knows Fai in person and even ends up considering the latter a good friend. Here, we're left to speculate the true extent of their relationship—is Chang just a male friend who serves the role of a "drinking buddy" for Fai with whom he can share his sorrows? Or is he a potential love interest (Chang's sexuality is never made completely clear)? On-screen, at least, we're left to assume the first option because Chang and Fai never end up being together anyway. Instead, we see Fai becoming increasingly cold and eventually somewhat like Po-Wing himself. We bear witness to Fai slowly giving up on people and his feelings and, in a sense, becoming freer.
All in all, it makes for a good watch, almost bordering on a masterpiece, and yet, falling short slightly due to the very same structural blurriness that makes it unique. It offers an experience that leaves you in awe of cinema's power to elevate a simple story to new heights, cementing its worth to be measured no less than four-and-a-half stars on a five-star scale.
The piece ends with Fai back in his homeland. "I'm back on this side of the world," he says, "I feel like I'm waking up from a long sleep." And so do we—with all the rustic technicalities of the plot, the shots and the jarring score, as the end credits roll, we, too, feel like we're waking up from a long sleep. A very emotional one, nonetheless.
It’s Fai’s dream, and everybody is just living in it.