My Blueberry Nights Analysis

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Written and Directed by: Wong Kar-wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman
Nominated for Palme d'Or at Cannes.

The frame rate. The bold colors. The dissolves. The dyed hair of the girl. The usage of pop music. The voice over. The usage of texts. Things obstructing the actors' close up shots to create a sense of depth. The film shows off its style unapologetically. It's a Wong Kar-wai film on the face and it'd be a feast to fans of the filmmaker. Not so much for someone who is being introduced to Wong Kar-wai with this film, because this is an anthology-ish film without actually being an anthology like Chungking Express. The characters are flawed, complex and intriguing, and I could even empathize with some of their thoughts and feelings. But I couldn't root for them. This isn't much of a complain, because Wong's films are more about the things that the film and the characters make us feel than the characters themselves. In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express cater to the loneliness, solitude and the unrequited love within ourselves. Wong's films are more immersive because we don't feel for the characters - we feel for ourselves through the music, the filmmaking and all the stylistic elements I was mentioning in the beginning.

Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong filmmaker), Hong Sang-soo (Korean filmmaker) and Haruki Murakami (Japanese author) - these three artists have a similarity in their voice. They make films about wandering souls, the drudgery of life, the food and beer, the mindless sex, the hangover of people and especially women, and all of them create art with a strong visual sense. I think Woody Allen could be too put in this category of artists. I'm yearning to discover more. Please help me if anyone can think of more artists like this.