Retrospective: Wong Kar Wai
A retrospective of one of the greatest masters of world cinema. Fresh, grasping, stylistically elaborate and deeply emotional films that even now, after many years, are still enchanting the audiences with their form and substance.
Wong Kar Wai is the most internationally renown Hong Kong auteur, whose personal vision of this unique city, enclosed in the stylized frames, seducing with lyrical beauty, has earned him a permanent space in the hearts of the viewers and in the history of cinema. The retrospective we will present at the 15th Five Flavours includes seven of his extraordinary works: from his grasping debut, flirting with the aesthetic of the best action cinema ("As Tears Go By"), through the tender portrayals of the inhabitants of the labyrinth city, pulsating with music video lights ("Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels"), to refined, sensual masterpieces about the impossible love ("In the Mood for Love," "2046").
The screenings will be a completely new experience – the radiant beauty of the films has been restored using cutting-edge digital techniques, under the director’s supervision. As the director himself said: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. (…) I invite the audience to join me in starting afresh, as these are not the same films, and we are no longer the same audience.
The fresh stories of rebels and spirited souls, pulsating with neon lights. The sensuous, ecstatically elegant poems about loneliness and unfulfilled desires. The fascinating portrayals of Hong Kong and the deeply piercing tales of emotions hidden deep inside. The director has managed to grasp the spirit of the turn of the millennium, the constant changes, balancing between the difficult, yet familiar past and the vibrating rush of the unknown future. My films are never about what Hong Kong is like, or anything approaching a realistic portrait, but what I think about Hong Kong and what I want it to be – the artist says.
