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Feast for the eyes

A cult director's sweet English-language debut
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June 11th, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
Slice of life: Jeremy (Jude Law) offers Elizabeth (Norah Jones) more than dessert.
My Blueberry Nights


Directed by Wong-Kar Wai
With Jude Law, Norah Jones, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman and Chan Marshall

For the Post
There’s a type of moviegoer who needs substance with their romance. They might wonder about a couple of pretty faces who’ve found lust or love, “But what will they talk about?” Wong Kar-Wai’s movies are not for those people. They’re for dreamers, romantics and aesthetes.
The Hong Kong director has made a career of extending a moment into a movie. His trademarks are improvised (and very little) dialogue, seductive slow motion, neon candy colors and a reliance on iconic music. One song, like the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’ ” will run through an entire movie (in this case, ChungKing Express) as an emotional underscore.
Unrequited love is Wong’s stock-in-trade. It took its most beautiful form in 2000’s In the Mood for Love, and was last seen in the uneven sequel to that movie, 2046. My Blueberry Nights, last year’s opener at Cannes, is his English-language debut. It’s a treat for Wong fans, film nerds and anyone up for a taste. But be advised: Because his films can be slow to the point of boring, they’re more a feast for the eyes.  
Blueberry’s people are interesting simply because they’re beautiful (Rachel Weisz), damaged (David Strathairn), willing to gamble (Natalie Portman) or runaway (Norah Jones). New York City café owner Jeremy (Jude Law) is interesting because he bakes a blueberry pie day after day that nobody purchases. He also keeps a jar full of keys on the counter. Lovers put the ones they no longer need into it for safekeeping, in case they decide to someday return. A freshly-dumped Elizabeth (Jones) leaves her keys, and something else, with Jeremy as she splits town.
She works her way across the country, first as bartender “Lizzy” in Memphis and then as a casino waitress named “Beth” outside of Las Vegas. In Memphis, she meets estranged couple Arnie (Strathairn) and Sue Lynne (Weisz). They’re the most typically tragic Wong characters, full of love and pain. Against the recurring strains of Ruth Brown’s mournful R&B song “Looking Back,” they give the film’s strongest performances. Memorable music that doesn’t recur includes some from indie star Cat Power (AKA Chan Marshall, who makes a cameo as Jeremy’s old girlfriend Katja) and a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.”
Blueberry is much more about style than substance. Blown-out red streetlights sway against a darkening southern sky, and are-they-real sunsets segue into automobile and landscape porn. Not everything is symbolic, but everything looks great. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle is behind the lush photography of most of Wong’s films. But his over-saturated colors and selective focus are mimicked nicely here by Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji (Evita, Delicatessen). Streaks and smudges of light trail the characters through their motions.
There’s more of a script than usual for a Wong film, but in English it often comes off as flat and pseudo-deep. “Sometimes we rely on other people like a mirror, to define and tell us who we are. Each reflection makes me like myself a little better,” says Elizabeth’s voiceover after meeting Leslie (who Portman plays a little bit like Susan Sarandon’s character in Thelma & Louise). It inspires uncomfortable thoughts on the fetishism of foreign film … or is it just that the screenplay (by crime novelist Lawrence Block) isn’t so great? Maybe Blueberry would sound less precious in Mandarin.
The film’s only real problem is the casting of singer Norah Jones as Elizabeth. Reportedly, Wong would have no one else. She doesn’t sink, but also isn’t as expressive as this style of filmmaking demands. Most of the time, she looks bored. But Wong’s highly stylized work takes some of the pressure off. He references Godard with blue-on-black title cards counting the number of days Elizabeth’s been away from New York. And he cuts away from a crucial moment to a full-frame visual of cream oozing through a magenta-purple slice of pie. Even a realist can identify with a long-awaited kiss tasting like that.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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