A short note on Wong

Wong Kar-wai's films suffer from an excess of style. Even when he should efface the in-your-face style he's known for, his camera and lighting and editing fill in for story. When he hit his stride with Happy Together, it's because he began investing energy in the creation of character and arc. His previous work, for all of its romance, feels like a music video of an adolescent idea of romance; with Happy Together, Wong finally grows up, but cannot escape his inclination to overstylize to punctuate emotion. In Wong's "mature" films (Happy Together, In the Mood For Love) this punctuation also lasts from the first frame to the last, but this tendency is also his downfall... How much more powerful would the end of In The Mood For Love be if he chose that moment, that final secret glimpse into the heart, to switch to a spare, static camera?

In the Mood For Love, 2001

prompted by a recent viewing of Fallen Angels.