The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-wai

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CHAPTER THIRTEE:--J 

The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-wai 

Marc Siegel 

C\\. S\ lll 

] part of 

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Sec Ill\ 

ations l n 

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w 1\et rocr 

Chan 

nent :;SS 

120, 110. 2 

ri sm, sec 

Cultural 

"Clobalsnuliww/ 

uke l !nike 

li!O, 

HapfJ)' Together /Chungumzg Zlwxie} (l

Figure 1. 

Filming homosexuality 

in Happy Together 

(1997). Courtesy 

of City Entertainment 

and Christopher Doyle. 

2781 MARC SIEGEL 

Unacquainted \\ith Buenos Aires, \Vong and his ere\\" found thcmseh·cs 

returning to the tramicnt spaces that arc familiar to any international tra\ 

cler. Thc~e 

bars, barbershops, fast-food joints, and trains, as \Yell as the 

tcmporan, fleeting human encounters associated \\ith them, are also familiar 

to ,·ic\\ ers of \Vong's other urban films -Days of Being \Vild, Clnmgking 

Express [Chongqing Sen/in) (llJ94), ami Pallen 1\ngels / Duoluo Timzshi} 

( 1 ')96 l. ln this sense, H afJfJY Together does not real h· tc II us \·en· much about 

Buenos ,\ires. Instead, it uses certain :\w;entinc spaces in order to locali7.c 

Hong Kong concerns and perceptions. As \Vong has put it, "lllt's more like 

I'm remaking Hong Kong in Buenos :\ires."' 

\\ong am! Dm 1c ha\c also suggested that the film doesn't rcalh tell us \en 

much about hmnosexualih either. Though ostcnsihh- a stcn\· about the trials 

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and tribulations of 

about human com 

ference at the 199~ 

mise-en-scene, Tl' 

relations, human c 

men hut it could h~ 

asserted: "In fact I c 

aston about huma 

arc both men." i De 

are no gms. One is 

French critic scc1w 

ualih ,,hatsoe\er fr 

the presence oft 

all that this film, 

a homoscxualih 

" gmtto," Wong~ 

\\ ith a couple: ell 

\\·oman, h\·o me1 

would in am cas 

\Vhilc Wong's st 

stake in producing 

means settled as co 

hie) statements of tl 

for example, the sig 

guishing the clcpic 

heteroscxualih in 1 

I long Kong films, 

homosexualih do s' 

subject ,,·ithout mal 

during production,. 

was " not ga\ enougl 

"l'his ambi,alenc 

hm\ gay the film re; 

is emblematic of Hc 

called "the problem 

lion in the global ec 

am] its anxich mer

THE INTIMATE SPACES OF WONG KAR-WAI 1279 

and tribulations of hHJ male lovers, Happv 'l(Jgether, \\e arc told, is actuallv 

about human cm11munication in general. As \\'ong stated in a press conference 

at the 1997 Cannes Film Fcsti\al, \\here the film \\On a pri7.e for 

mise-en-scene, "IT] his film is not merely about h\·o men, but ~1bout human 

relations, human communication and the means of maintaining it. It's hn1 

men but it could have been am· other couple." 4 On another occa:sion, \Vong 

asserted: "In fact 1 don't like people to sec this film as a gm film. lfs more like 

a storv about human relationships ami somehow the hnJ characters inmhed 

are both men."' Doyle reiterated the director's sentiments: "At a pinch, there 

are no gays. One is ,,hat one is and this film shm\s that."(, One enthusiastic 

French critic seems to relish the opportunity to erase am traces of homoscxualih 

\\ hatsoc\ er from the film, claiming that 

the presence of the hvo central male characters does not signif\ at 

all that this film, like mam others, flaunts the ostentatious sigm of 

a homosexualitY\\ om on its slee\·e. Conceming the question of a 

''ga\tto," \\'ong Kar-wai settles his account conclmively: the film deals 

with a couple: and \\ hcther the actors \\·ere hn1 \HJmcn, a man and a 

\\oman, hn1 men, a man and a wardrobe, a \\oman and a transsexual 

\\'otdd in am case not change a thing.- 

Yes 

the 

1 il- 

~mg 

shi / 

OUt 

izc 

ike 

v\'hile \Vong\ statements hm·c made it clear that he does not ha,·e anv 

stake in producing films that might be labeled "gm,'' his account is b, no 

means settled as COilclmi,·cly as the implicitlv homophobic (and transphobic) 

statements of the abm e critic '' ould impl~." \Vong has noted elsewhere, 

for example, the significance that a gav specificit\· brings to the film. Distinguishing 

the depiction of homosexuality in HafJPY Together from that of 

heteroscxualih in his other films and from that of homosexualitv in other 

. . 

I long Kong films, \Vong notes that "the few Hong Kong films that treat 

lwmoscxualih . do so within the context of comech. . 1 \\anted to take 011 the 

subject without making people laugh."'! Om le notes as well that at one point 

during production, after vie\\ing the rushes, \Vong e\·en worried that the film 

\\as "not gav enough.'' 1 ' 1 

This ambi,alcnce about the ostensible subject of I lappy Together- about 

how gav the film really is and about the film's relationship to Hong Kongis 

emblematic of Hong Kong cinema as it confronts what Ackbar Abbas has 

called "the problematics of disappearance." 11 Because of Hong Kong's position 

in the global econom\, its experiences of colonialism and imperialism, 

and its anxietv mer 1997, the cit\·, according to Abbas, has been marked by

280 I MARC SIEGEL 

clusi\ encss, defincclll\ spatial and temporal clisjuncturc, and characterized 

bv disappearance. The filmmakers of the !long Kong :.Jc\\ \Vm·c -most 

notabh \Vong, Stanlc\ K\\an, Ann Hui, Tsui Hark, John \\'oo, and .\lien 

Fong- thus clo not document the appearance of Hong Kong as a subject, but 

rather the elusiveness of Hong Kong's cultural space. These films thereb\ 

contribute to a redefinition of the local, expressed in part through the me of 

the Cantonese language. In Cantonese films of the earh 1970s, according to 

Abbas, "the local \\as an ethic of exclusion: it defined a narrm\ homogeneous 

social space \\here foreigners and foreign elements had no place." lc Films of 

the 198os and199os, hm' e\·er, utilized the Cantonese that is spoken in Ilong 

Kong today, "a Cantonese sprinkled \\ith \landarin, English, and barbarom 

sounding \\ords and phrases-a hybrid language coming out of a ll\bricl 

space." 1 ' No longer stable and homogeneous, the local is nm\ mutable and 

international, like spoken Cantonese itself. In fact, it is precisely the nC\\ 

Cantonese cinema's specificity as local that lends it its international qualih. 

If Happy Together is successful at achieving the local internationalism 

im·okcd by Abbas, then its success is not limited to its abilih· to articulate 

a Hong Kong localism in Argentina. The depiction of temporary, fleeting 

human encounters in public places resonates not only \\ith similar images 

in \Vong's other films- and thereby \\ ith the transient cultural space of 

Hong Kong- but also '' ith that \ ery "gaytto" so denigrated by the abm e 

French critic. By acknmdcdging the significance of homosexuality to Happy 

Together, by acknowledging "·hat I would call the film's ghetto specificitY, 

moreover, we can recognize these behaviors, spaces, and images as indicative 

of something other than "loneliness, insecurity, and Jthe] inability to 

commit," the hpical qualities ascribed to \Vong's films. 14 From a ghetto perspectiYc, 

the images in Happv Together, as in \Vong's other films, arc instead 

indices of a public world of new intimacies. 

Globalization and the Ghetto 

As Ella Shohat and Robert Stam note, "the term 'globalization' usually 

evokes a complex realignment of social forces engendering an merpowcring 

wave of global political, cultural and economic interdependency." 1 s 

There are manv ,,·ays in ,,hich scxualitv is implicated in this situation of 

global interdependency. I'll cite two striking examples. First, the global AIDS 

epidemic has forced various lcv·cls of interaction and discussion about sex, 

sexual behavior, and sexual identity among individuals, community organizations, 

and governments across national borders. 16 Second, the explosion of 

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gay and lesbian or ' 

images will travel tc 

of gender, scxualih 

consider the conm 

Queer Film and Vi 

\al b, the Korean g 

Our censorship 

lesbian sexual b< 

'' ho are citizens 

it is nonsensical 

conmnmities," 1 

of such pcoplc. 1 

The mm emcnt of 

isomorphic alignn 

mcnt of sexual cm1 

In Modernity c. 

Appadurai offers o 

his anahsis, localit 

or spatial.'' IS \lots 

rather a structure c 

its 0\\'n rcproducil 

localih is linked to 

"I use the term ne. 

which localit\, as; 

lizing global ccm 

ana h sis, that ensu 

local subjects, ancl 

that they provide t 

action ( productin' 

and conducted 1111 

Appadurai's the 

which particular 

sense of place des 

reliance on the co 

turc is produced a 

the implied resid1 

the nuclear famil;


reproduction.= 1 1 I mY rcle\ ant, then, is the neighborhood to a consideration 

of the locali:r.ation of sexualities, cspecialh those that arc cxcluclcd from this 

"'most intimate arena?" 

In their exhilarating discussion of"thc radical aspirations of queer culture 

building," Lauren Bcrlant ami ,\ lichacl \\'a mer challenge the ideolog\ of the 

neighborhood.== For them, the neighborhood as a social form does not adequateh 

describe the context \\ithin \\hich queer sexual subjecti\ity is produced. 

,-\s thev note, sexual subjects do not merch reside, and "'the local 

character of the neighborhood depends on the daih· presence of thousands 

of nonresidents."=' Emphasizing the status of prop crt\ 0\\ncrs and the COilclition 

of residence, the ideologv of the neighborhood reproduces national 

clivisiom, bct\\een public and private space, \\ith intimae\ relegated to the 

realm of the pri\atc. ln the transient queer \\oriel described b, Berlant ami 

\Varner, hcme\cr, intimae\· is neither constrained b\ the pri\·atized form of 

the couple nor segregated '' ithin the pri,·atizcd spaces of the bedroom, the 

apartment, or the home. 

Queer and other insurgents hme long stri\Cll, often dangcroush or 

scandalously, to culti,atc \\hat good folks used to call criminal 

intimacies. \Ve hme cle\clopecl relations and narrati\·es that arc 

onh recognized as intimate in queer culture: girlfriends, gal pals, 

fuckbuddies, tricks. Queer culture has learned not only IHJ\\ to 

sexuali:r.e these and other relations, hut also to use them as a context 

for \\itncssing intense and personal affect \\bile elaborating a public 

\\oriel of belonging and tramformation. ~laking a queer \\oriel has 

required the de\ elopment of kinds of intimacv that hear no nccessarv 

relation to domestic space, to kinship, to the couple form, to property, 

or to the nation.'-+ 

Follcm ina Bcrlant and \Varner we could sa\ that a discmsion of the lo- 

'=' ' . 

ca]i;ation of sexualities in a global context must be attentive to the potential 

intimacies in the "pub! ic \\oriel of belonging and transformation." 'I Cl describe 

this queer c:-..pericnce of local it\, 1 propose to use the term ghetto, instead of 

neighborhood. In the introduction to his H)8o traYclogue Le guy vovuge, the 

l


crat ion 

om th i~ 

culture 

' of the 

not adc- 

} IS proe 

local 

ousa nels 

he COllnatiOil~ll 

d to the 

ant and 

form of 

om, the 

or 

, 

text 

blic 

s 

~ssan 

f the lopotcnt 

ial 

describe 

nstcad of 

yage, the 

s the imra\ 

elcr.'' 

that 

said 

the great American \niter John Rccll\. The [,ungote\ ere comes to 

an end at \Vest Street, the Tiber flcms into the lludson Ri\er, the door 

in the back of a sauna in Amsterdam opens onto the dark hall of a 

cinema in Pigallc. The Tuileries and Central Park hme the same 

bronze lion, and the same shadows S\\·irl in the allcvs in the \\CC 

homs of the morning. 2 r' 

In \Yhat we might call Hocqucnghem's translocal gay ghetto, the mist of a 

sauna or the shadows in a nighttime park arc imbued with a tramformativc 

pmver that seems literally to whisk the gay mbanitc from ghetto to 

ghetto. The locality of each ghetto is thus marked by dislocation, by a connection 

with other ghettos across national boundaries. Morcm er, the ghetto 

in Hocqucnghem's formulation is not simply descriptive of a particular 

spatiallv bounded section of tmm. Instead it refers to an assortment of public 

spaces- including saunas, cinemas, parks, and alleys- that arc linked 

together as places for potential sexual contacts. The ghetto is also the site 

''here one hones the skills ncccssarv for navigating \asth different urban 

landscapes- that is, ''here one learns the essential queer art of em ising. 

Hocquenghem's sexual ghetto is thus a context within which the intimate 

relations forged by queers are meaningful, legible, and reproducible. It is 

a context that ensures the reproduction of sexual subjects and of queer 

knowlcdgcs. 

Published just after the beginning of gav liberation and just before the 

emergence of the AIDS epidemic, Le gay voyage, with its sections on the 

major Emopcan and American cities, is vcn much a product of its time. 

The fact of global intcrdcpcndcnc\ today suggests that Hocquenghem's 

ghettos are interrupted not merely by train stations and airports, hut also bv 

the flcms of capital, politics, and the media. The knowlcdgcs and intimacies 

of the ghetto arc thus constructed in relation to the seemingly random influx 

of images, ideas, and bcha, iors that come from else\\ here. 

The Intimate Spaces of\Vong Kar-wai 

\Vong has pointed out that I long Kong fan magazines urged audiences to be 

punctual to l TafJfJv Together so as not to miss the opening sex scene. "Other 

\\·ise," he sa\s, "it's just a film about 1\\0 brothcrs.'' 2 - As one critic has obsen·ed, 

ho\\"ever, it is only a film about two brothers if one denies the strong 

erotic tension bet\veen the male protagonists, most e\·idcnt for that critic in 

the scenes of Ho Po-wing teaching Lai Yiu-fai how to dance the tango. 2 '


\\'hilc there is a precedent in 1 Tong Kong films for close bonding bet\\een 

male protagonists, perhaps most famoush in the films of John \\oo, the degree 

of intimae\ bch\een Ho and Lai in I TafJfJY 'fbgetlzer docs suggest a rclahomhip 

of a different categon altogether. Rather than argue for the queerness 

of the film])\ ha,·ing recourse solch· to the intimae\ bel\\ccn 1 loami 

Lai, hem eYer, J prefer to discms the specific context \\ithin \\hich their rclatiomhip 

takes place and indeed breaks dmm. I TafJfJY 'l(Jgether is clearh a 

queer film not sin1ph because it depicb a sexual relationship heh\ecn l\m 

men, but became it depicts and C\ okes the intimate behm iors, spaces, ami 

images of a sc\ual ghetto. 

The film tells the ston of t\\

THE INTIMATE SPACES OF WONG KAR-WAI /285 

en 

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Figure 2. 

Public space as 

sexual ghetto in 

Happy Together. 

Courtesy of City 

Entertainment and 

Christopher Doyle. 

CCS 

her 

r to 

OJJg 

for 

:;u 

rll 

bcith 

hi.'> 

lie;, 

s of 

net 

ests 

nk 

ellthe 

era 

~- ln 

0111- 

ee. 

of a 

se:-:ual ghetto. ~lorem er, the narrati1 e fnnction and aesthetic impact of the 

sequence resonate 11 ith that of the abattoir scene in Rainer \\'cmcr Elssbinclcr's 

in a Yearo(Thirteen ;\loons (I


This is not to say that the characters understand or experience random 

fleeting encounters in the public sexual \\oriel as intimate. Lai in particular 

expresses discomfort and confusion about this sexual \vorlcl. \Vhen he unexpectedly 

encounters Ho while both arc cruising in a public toilet, Lai expresses 

regret for his actions. His voice-m·er explains: "l\e ne\·er liked hanging 

around toilets. Thought it was clirtv. These clays I use them as it's the 

easiest. Never drcamccll'cl see Po-wing in there. l never went back. I thought 

I ''as different from Po-wing. Turns out lonely people arc all the same." Despite 

his stated discomfort with this situation, Lai's acknov,:leclgmcnt of the 

case of connecting \\·ith other men within the sexual ghetto- by ''hanging 

around toilets"- attests to his awareness that such a world docs exist. For the 

critic Larry Gross, the characters in \Vong's films seem suspended in an 

"unfulfilled yet compelling dream, as if the movie opens out into a new reality 

just outside the frame of the screen." H Following Gross, we might say 

that Lai shares a trait with other \Vong protagonists: a seme that there is a 

public world of possible intimate connections, but that one docs not quite 

knmv how to access it. 

\Vong's other films, \\·hile not depicting the particular sexual ghetto that I 

ha,·e been describing here, do depict the random encounters and possible 

public connections that arc recognized as intimate within a sexual ghetto. 

The structures of gav male cruising, the anonymous, often wordless encounters 

between men in public, and the intense affective images in Happv 

'l(Jgether incleccl recall \Vong's earlier films. Christopher Dodc notes that one 

clay during the shooting of Happy Together, he experienced deja vu. 

The cars, the colours, the isolation, the traim, the (same) cast, the 

(same) cre\v, the \\·eather and the unfamiliar language. \Ve start to 

ha\·e a deja vu feeling. It seems \\c're finally making that Davs of 

Being 'VVild Part II that so many ha\ e expected from us for so long. 

Leslie C\Cll began humming the theme from Days as he prepared 

for a shot todav." 

Happy Together shares'' ith \Vong's other films a concerted refusal to relegate 

intimacv to the private form of the couple or to the privatized space of the 

apartment. It is perhaps in this \\a\ that\\ c could make sense of Cross's temptation 

to refer to \Vong as ''the last heterosexual director." ,r, He is the last heterosexual 

director because his films picture the limits of heteronormative 

constraints on intimae\. In other words, \Vong's films challenge the idea that 

intimacy can be confined ,,·ithin the form of the couple and within the realm 

of the pri\ate. 

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iJ is films freqt 

others in public pi 

of brief meetings 

Cheung), an emF 

Yuclch anclLai Jw 

minute the\· spent 

paneled until it be 

Express and Falle1 

nectiom to be ha1 

Wu (Takeshi Kar 

(Leon Lai ), expre 

m·ers: ''\Ve rub sh 

each other. ... Bt 

The potential 

of possibility for n 

Express and Faile 

clencc, but of tra 

apartment are lei 

counter, E1vc I Fa 

his apartment in 

arranges the roor 

6~~· In Fallen A.n 

partner ( i\lichcll 

\Vong is absent f 

the garbage. and 

garbage to find c 

one's life are the 

others. Concerlll 

\Vong has noted, 

mac\ of others, a 

order to discm er 

'['he destabil i1 

to me a pub] ic ' 

cnth b, Wong's 

pri,·atizecl forms 

characters to ad 

ample, \Vong's 

urban societv, 01 

bonds to familY < 

pcncnce "come


om 

dar 

g 

t he 

ght 

e 

the 

mg 

the 

an 

IS a 

ite 

t I 

ble 

~tto. 

one 

ate 

the 

p 

e:\- 

C:\- 

rcsav 

enppv 

hctti\ 

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that 

aim 

His films frequently focus on characters \\ho ramlcnnh connect \\ith 

others in public places. Dcrys of Being Wild, for instance, opem \\ith a series 

of brief meetings bel\\ ccn Yuclch (Leslie Cheung) and Lai J un (Maggie 

Cheung), an cmplcl\·ee in a deserted cafe. The sequence culminates \Yith 

Yuclch anclLai Jun watching the clock and agreeing to reme1nhcr the single 

minute the\· spent together. "-\s Lai Jun's nJice-m·er indicates, that minute e:-; 

pancleduntil it became an hour (of sn) C\Cf\ elm. F.arh in both Chungk:ing 

Express and Fallen Angels \\C hear \·oice-mcrs suggesting the potential connections 

to he had in public places. The cop in Chungbng Express, lie Qi 

Wu (Takesh i Kaneshiro), and the killer in Fallen Angels, Wong Chi-ming 

(Leon Lai), c:-;press basicallv the same sentiment in almost identical voicem·ers: 

"\Ve rub shoulders \\ith each other even elm .... \Ve mav not know 

. . . 

each other. ... But \ve may become good friends somcclm ." 

The potential for public intimate connections is underscored b, the lack 

of possibilih· for restricting intimacy to privatized spaces. In both Chungking 

F:xfJress and Jo'allen Angels, the apartment, for e:-;ample, is not a place of residence, 

but of transience.'- After the kcvs to cop no. O))'s ('l(Jm Leung's) 

apartment are left b, a former girlfriend at the ~lidnight Express fast-food 

counter, hl\c (h1\c \Vongl manages to get the cop's address and sneaks into 

his apartment in his absence. Frolicking alone in the apartment, 1'~1\C 

rearranges 

the room, changes the fish in the fish tank, and cleans up after no. 

033. In Fallen Angels, \Vong Chi-ming, a contract killer, has \\orkcd \\ith his 

partner ( 1\Iichelle Reis) for three 'cars, though theY ha\ e rarely met. \Vhcn 

\Vong is absent from his apartment, his partner enters, cleam up, takes out 

the garbage, and masturbates on his bee!. She c\·cn rummages through the 

garbage to find clues about the killer's life. The secmingh pri\ate details of 

one's life are therefore not nccessarilv free from unsolicited inspection bv 

others. Concerning his interest in disturbing the pri\aC\ of the apartment, 

\Vong has noted, "Most people harbor a secret curiosity conecming the intimac\ 

of others, and dream of penetrating their homes\\ ithout being seen, in 

order to discmcr ,,ho theY arc, \\·hat the, do."'' 

The destabilization of the cli,·icle het\\ecn public and pri\ate that suggests 

to me a public \\oriel of potential nc\\ intimacies is described quite differently 

by \Vong's other critics. In most accounts of his films an absence of 

privatized forms of intimae\ attests instead to the failure of the indiYidual 

characters to achieve real or oc:tual intimacv. For Jean-~'larc Lalannc, fore:-; 

ample, \Vong's films emphasize the solitan· incli,iclual in ccmtcmporan 

urban society, one \\ ho is destitute and emotionallv impm·erished, \\·ithout 

bonds to famih- or eonnmmity.''J For Chuck Stephens, \Vong's characters e:-; 

pcricncc "coincidental prmimih and romantic bad timing I thatl rarch- add


up to actual intcraction."+ 11 And for .\ckhar Abbas, C\ en \Vong Kar-\vai film 

treats the theme of ''prm:imit\· \vithout reciprocity; that is to sav, hem· \\·c can 

be pll\sicalh close to a situation or to a person without there being am intimac\ 

or knowledge."+ 1 But docs ''proximitv \vithout reciprocih" necessarily 

suggest a failed interaction, an absence of knmdcdgc? :\!light it not rather 

offer a different kind ofknm\lcdgc? Finalh, and most importanth·, docs intimac\ 

demand reciprocit\ 7 

\Vhilc these critics righth acknmdcdge the fast-paced urban \vorld of 

\Vong's films, their analyses of this \\oriel betray their mvn anxiety about what 

counts as intimate in a global context. Abbas notes that \Vong's films, like 

others of the Hong Kong New \Vcne, respond to the spatial transformations 

effected bv globalism, and in particular b\· ne\\ technologies, \\ith a challenge 

to realist cinematic strategies for depicting space. These films do not 

merely depict characters attempting to adjust to spatial transformations but 

produce images that are themselves marked by disjuncture. "Tt is as if all the 

\\avs of relating h


Figure 3. 

Intimacy marked by 

spatial and temporal 

disjunctures in 

Happy Together. 

f 

Courtesy of City 

Entertainment and 

Christopher Doyle. 

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t 

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C 

IS 

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\\here films arc produced at such a quick rare and actors, \\ ho arc making a 

number of films at the same time, are not able to "enter the \\orld" of the particular 

film \Vong is shooting. "I h,l\e to get them to lccl\T themschcs in order 

to prepare them for their role. T h,nc to exhamt them so that theY get riel of 

the acting cliches that come out in their other films."H 

BY exhausting his performers, \Vong is able to extract from them performances 

of great intensit\· and intimae\. I ,eung, \\ho also appeared in 

Davs of Being \Vile!, Ashes ofTime /Dong Xie Xi Du) (1994l. and Clnmgking 

ExfJress, ''as, according to\ Vong, I ike many Hong Kong actors'' ith rclc\ is ion 

experience; he \\as \\onclerfulh cxpressi\c \\ith his face, hut did not quite 

kmm hem· to uti]i;.e his hoch·. 4 ' After thirt\ unsuccessful takes- for a sequence 

that was cut from Da)'S of Being Wild-\Vong fin all\ managed to instill 

in Leung the neccssih of concentrating on the most intimate bodih 

gestures. ln the case of l'vlaggic Cheung, \Yho began \\ ork '' ith \Vong on his 

first film, As 'I ems Go By (Wcmgjiao Kamen/ (19S8), the director noticed that 

she \\as quite cxprcssi\e \\ith her hoch, but not particularly gifted \\ith dialogue. 

"So 1 cut the majoritY of her lines in order to concentrate on her actions, 

on her most intimate bodily moYcments, and her performance became 

excellent.''-+!. 

\\ 7 ong's ahilih to solicit intimate performances is paired \\·ith the cinematographer 

Christopher Dode's skill at producing intimate images. Om 1c 

is particularh kmmn for his agility \\ith a handheld camera. \\'orking in this 

\\ay a lim\ shim mobility and the 1 iberty to follow the actions of the performer 

more closeh+- "Our kind of camera\\·m-k is 'anticipation aml respomc.' I

290 I MARC SIEGEL 

need to follm\ the actor or dancer as much as lncccl him or her to 'lead."'~' 

Doyle's images, ,,·hich attempt to match or be in tune \\ ith the bodih- gestures 

and mm·ements of the performers, achie\ e an unusual kind of intimac~·. 

Remarking on Dodc's \\ork 011 TemfJtress Moon [f


her to 'lead."' 4 " 

the bodih geswl 

kind of inti 

Yue}, the direcs, 

you feel the 

udience to love 

, musical qualilc\ 

"camera caprison 

crs of the 

ors and charac- 

~s: 

. In 

! 

metaphor, 

otalh 

·oriel \\C 

ight not expect 

.ln Chungking 

Angels, the feassing 

because 

ong Chi-ming. 

t because of a 

le to hear conaC\ 

inclependlobal 

context, 

ggcst that inti 

's affection for 

'ideo images. 

tial comfort of 

s that what the 

~·but 'courage' 

erm and looks 

the encl of the 

tancl in· E1ipei. 

Here he steals a photo from Chang's trip to the lighthouse in South America. 

l ,ai's return home to Hong Kong \\ith Chang's photo in hand, far from signaling 

his solitude or melancholy, suggests rather his acknowledgment of a 

potential for ne\\ kinds of intimae\·. \\'hat Chang gives Lai is thm not enduring 

phvsical proximity, but the comfort of an image. 

In a global context, in \\ hich the movement of queer images across 

national borders facilitates the creation of a public \\oriel of belonging, the 

comfort of an image cannot be taken too lighth. \\'ith Happv 'J(Jgether, \Vong 

Kar-wai's images ha\C begun to circulate ,,·ithin a queer \\oriel. Tn the context 

of contemporary gay and lesbian films, these images arc distinguished In au 

intimae\· that is all too rare. As B. Rubv Rich notes in an article in ,,hich she 

. . 

singles out Happv Together for praise '' hilc bemoaning the current state of 

ga\· and lesbian filmmaking, "It's ,·cry much a gav story and one that no ga\ 

director has dared shmv. \Vhv is that? \Vhy are\\ estill cmcring up the realities 

of our lives for the sake of a respectable image?"" The respectable images 

that Rich criticizes are those sterile depictions of ga~s and lesbians that 

are so prevalent among commercial films that treat hmuosexualit\·; these are 

images without tracking problems in which intimacy ancl sexual it\~ if depicted 

at all~ are safely confined to the realm of the pri\atc. In contrast, 

\Vong's unstable images of drunken, angrv, scxuallv active characters ancl the 

public spaces \\here thev find and lose one another suggest a depth of feeling 

and an imaginati\c arrm of affccti,·c relations. From the perspecti\·e of 

the sexual ghetto, these images attest to the rich possibilities for imaging ami 

imagining intimacy in a global context. 

Notes 

1 Sec Berenice Rcmaud, "HafJfJ)' 'lbgether de \Vong Kar-\\ai,'' Cahiers du c:inema 

513 (1\Jav 1997): ;6 

2 Chrio.tophcr Dodc, Buenos :\ires ('loho: Prcnom II, 1997), )). 

) Quoted in Hmvard Feinstein, "Celluloid 'E1kcm cr: I long Kong's 1\ lini\\an: of 

Ca\·-Thcmcd mmics," Out, October 1997, 40. \\'ong\ rcntake of I long Kong in 

Buenos Aires occurred just prior to the end of British rule in the colon\ in 

Juh·1997 and thus at a time of intense anxieh· 0\er the potential remake of Hong 

Kong by the Chmcse gmenunent. A .. s \Vong notes in an intcn·ic\\ \\ith Jimm\ 

Ngai, "One of the reasons that I chme Argentina \\as that it is on the other side 

of the\\ oriel, and 1 thought that b\ going there, I would be able to sta\


4 Conference de presse, "HafJfJ)' 'li>gether de \\'ong Kar-11ai" (Cannes, I';" \LI\ 

ll)l)jl, Il.Jl. All tramlatiom from the French arc 1m· cm11. 

Quoted in Richard I .ippe, "Ga1 1\lcnics, \\'est and Kist," CineAc:ticm 45 (ll)l);l: 

::;0. 

(J Conference de pressc, 11.p. 

Thien\ jousse, "1-fapfJl' 'li>gether de \\'ong Kar-\\ai." Cahiers clu czm!ma )Lf 

(june ll)l)j): 20. 

8 \\'ong has stated: ":\cmnalh I hate nio\ics \\ith labels like 'ga1 film,' 'art film,' or 

'eoiiiinereial film.' There is onh good film and bad film." Quoted in I .ippe, ::;8. 

9 Rc1naucl, "/lafJ/Jl' 'li>gether," ;C1 

10 Dm lc, 130. 

11 Sec .\ckbar \hbas, Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics ofDisafJpearanc:e (:\linneapolis: 

Unin'fsih· of \linncsota Press, ll)l)jl, chapters 2 and '3· 

12 Ibid., 20. 

I) Ibid. 

q 'l(m\ R

..... 

THE INTIMATE SPACES OF WONG KAR-WAI j293 

\Ll\ 

l)l)jl: 

(/ :;q 

m, or 

C, :;0. 

(:\lin- 

::; ): 12. 

s \\ ith 

1ith a 

n one 

1t," in 

\'Cilh· 

alue:, 

o ca II 

night 

ociatporal 

puban 

not 

tiona! 

ocal: 

1 and 

1 and 

f De 

? The 

Iobal 

1l)l)7): 

'lhctcg,," 

Pathsing 

11Sll


"34 Larrv Crms, ":\onchalant Crace," Sight and Sound 6, no. y (H)96): 10. 

) s Do de, ;S. 

)6 Gros:>, 10. 

"37 In this respect, \Vong's films arc engaged in a similar project to those of director 

[ sai i\ling-liang. 

)S Berenice Rcmaud, "l. 

4Y "~lotion aml !

The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-wai

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