Happy Together

Without a doubt Wong Kar Wai's rawest and most immediate and urgent film, not a single moment of Happy Together backtracks in fact it is so sharply straight forward that at times its painful. Although am sure the prospect of two of the most famous male Hong Kong film stars at that time starring together as a gay couple was enough of a provocative draw for Hong Kong and International filmgoers for 1997 nowadays with how thankfully common films featuring gay couples are around which am sure this film help paved the way for nowadays Happy Together is less noticeable especially when compared to Kar Wai's other works in fact I'll say his style is noticeably more stripped back then usual here, there is no lyrical almost magical realism at play like in Chungking Express or mixing genres like in Fallen Angels, theres no crazy structure that plays with time like in 2046 or the high concept, contemplative almost painterly touch of In the Mood for Love, here it is just two people who used to be in love and are but can't love one another and in that sense Happy Together is the most honest and realistic of all of Kar Wai's depiction of love and maybe his most devastatingly real. No matter your sexuality its hard not to relate to the couple here and their many struggles, fight, bond and outcome thus Kar Wai's film is less message or politics but a universal story that just happens to have two of the hotest men ever fronting the tale which is so removed from artificiality here, theres no cool smoking here only a real sense that match with the rundown environment our characters are stuck in that everything romantic is stripped from the picture and them smoking is less cinematic as it is narrative, they are killing themselves in and out, from the heart to the soul and although their love is a bright spot of their lives they are ultimately not good for one another and especially during the last act where we see the speration that the film hits hardest in uncompromising brutality. I really love this, even more then my first watch, its just refreshing especially after watching all of Kar Wai's film to have one where its less about people falling in love, being repressed from falling in love etc but more about having to accept the fallout, having to move on, in a way its his most mature and honest in that aspect and along with the amazing performances, as always absorbing beautiful cinematography, the foriegn setting and again the stripped back almost documentary like approuch and I think you have maybe his most underrated and bravest work yet, its less fantasy and more confrontational, less about the habits of people but instead of the mudnanity and I think there is something so true with the sheer simplicity of Happy Together but it doesn't ravel in it as much as it comes to terms with the fact that maybe we know more then we allow ourselves to.