buenos aires zero degree

today i watched buenos aires zero degree, a documentary on the making of wong kar-wai's happy together. i have a lot of thoughts about happy together and wong kar-wai in general that i will share on a different day; this documentary, though, was something that i'd only recently found out about when i went through all of leslie cheung's filmography on mubi (here's my profile) and added everything to my "want to watch" list. i'm always interested in extra-diegetic/-canonical material on wong kar-wai films, and to some extent i find them to be more worthwhile and intriguing than his films themselves. i'd say that this is true for buenos aires zero degree, since in my view happy together isn't particularly powerful when taken as a standalone film.

i had previously gone through cinematographer chris doyle's journal entries in his happy together photobook don't try for me, argentina (which i'd die to get a copy of just to see one particular photo of leslie, but they went out of print a long time ago. there are some real gems in his journal entries though, if you're willing to wade through doyle's loose writing style and occasionally insensitive remarks). one theme that emerged in doyle's journal entries was the increasing feeling of frustration and hopelessness among the cast and crew during the shooting process of happy together. apparently they stopped filming for lengths of time as wkw scrambled to try to piece together a narrative for the film. another was the sense of alienation everyone felt due to their unfamiliarity with argentina, which is on the opposite side of the globe from hong kong. 

the documentary meditates on these feelings further. the film itself, directed by pung leung-kwan and amos lee, is a collection of footage of the crew returning to argentina and revisiting the sites where happy together was filmed, as well as a few interviews and some cut scenes (mostly from chang chen's character's story). because im a corny diasporic sino, i felt like i could understand the way the chinese-argentine crew members described buenos aires as a space that they don't "belong" to, a space that marginalizes them, and yet is still an intimate and important place in their memories. in fact, i think happy together's portrayal of transnational sino migration is one of its most interesting elements, although i'd say that the film doesn't explore this very purposefully. buenos aires zero degree fills in this area a bit. there's an interview with the owner of the chinese restaurant that tony's character works at in the film, and the owner talks about how hard it was when they first moved to argentina, but that they managed to push through because they were young. and then in wong kar-wai's voiceover, he wonders what he would've done if he had to start over completely in argentina like these people had done. i've been thinking about how the chinese have historically been very willing to traverse vast geographical distances and become diasporic subjects in order to make it in a new land; in the process, they end up forming complex ties to their host countries. one of the crew members in the documentary mentions that whenever they travel, they don't want to seek out other chinese people, because they'd rather be a traveler first and foremost, with no ties to any place or group of people. this is pretty interesting - how much can sinos really shed their "identities" when they're occupying a transient position in a new land? 

it was also interesting to see the cut scenes w chang chen and shirley kwan (btw, chang chen reminds me so much of someone that i know, especially the way he talks, but i can't put my finger on who it is. gah!!). they were pretty classic wkw scenes, with shirley kwan playing a mysterious woman who runs into both chang chen and tony's characters, reminiscent of brigitte lin and faye wong in chungking express. the scenes were probably cut in favor of keeping the narrative focus on tony's character, but i'm really glad to have been able to see the footage. also can i just say that it must really suck that the actors in wkw films don't really know if their scenes are going to make the final cut until they see the film premiere on the big screen. 

as for leslie, he doesn't really appear much here, aside from some footage of the cast and crew celebrating his birthday at the beginning of the documentary (which killed me btw). from what i've read, leslie was busy preparing for his 1997 concert tour so he couldn't afford to stay in argentina for very long, and subsequently didn't participate in much of the film's promotion, nor in this documentary. after filming happy together, leslie openly expressed dissatisfaction with wong kar-wai's directing style and procrastinated on going to see the film in theaters. i do have more to say about leslie's role in happy together, but i'm going to save that for another day because i don't want to sidetrack this post.

anyways, i'd love to find a dvd version of this and be able to watch it in higher quality, and preferably with english subtitles. i've really been testing myself lately by streaming films online in pretty terrible quality. i also have a pdf of a book on happy together (thank you steven!) that i want to skim through soon. i really can't believe that despite everything i'm still so invested in wong kar-wai films! god!