In late 2005 I asked someone to buy me a copy of 2046 for Christmas. I'd heard things about it and wanted to see it but wouldn't shell out to blind-buy it myself. Instead, when it came to christmas, the person buying had obviously seen a tie-in link when getting it and had bought me it's "prequel", In the Mood For Love as well, which I'd only heard of in reference to 2046. So I figured, given as it was Christmas Day, I'd gotten up early to open presents and wasn't doing anything until lunchtime, I may as well watch them in order. About 10 minutes in I realised I'd seen In the Mood For Love before.
It's an iconic image, Maggie Cheung walking to get noodles in slow-motion with the Shigeru Umebayashi's waltz accompanying it but that was when it clicked. Many years previously I had seen Fucking Amal (Show Me Love) on BBC3. I was in my 2nd or 3rd year at University and I stumbled across it about 10 minutes in and was mesmerised. The problem was my two housemates had told me earlier they wanted to watch something and the film went on 5 minutes beyond their programme's start time. So while trying to explain it's a good film without "it's about 15 year old Swedish lesbians" sounding truly pathetic I gave up and let them watch their thing.
About a year later, I discovered that Film Four (which was still a subscription channel back then) was showing it as part of a double bill chosen by Mike Figgis so I paid the £6 to have the channel for the month *solely* to video this Swedish film. I cannot recall whether In the Mood For Love was the other half of that double bill or not, but it was on regularly that month and one night I watched three-quarters of it before going out. I had really enjoyed it but completely forgotten about it as I had no frame of reference to remember it as anything other than "that chinese film with the red curtains".
Now that had happened to me once before at University. In my first year I had recently moved from my shared room in an old oversized house to a proper block with a single room with en suite and kitchen so I was living as high on the hog as Leeds University halls of residence allowed. LATE one night I had, completely unplanned, finished watching something on Channel 4 and they advertised a film coming up next. It was Chinese, very cool and I enjoyed it tremendously but the only thing I could remember for certain about it years later was that there was a rip-off of a Cranberries song over the end credits. Having recently re-discovered In the Mood... I was trying to find out what this other one was so I entered the lead singer of The Cranberries' name into IMDB and looked for foreign sounding films. I found one from 1994 and clicked on it and it said "Directed by Kar-Wai Wong" which prompted an "OF COURSE!!!" from my lips. It was Chungking Express.
So Wong and I have a history, he lingered in the corners of my mind with my loving him dormantly, needing a spark to allow me to remember. It turned out later when talking to a friend about this that she swears blind we had tried to see 2046 on its theatrical release but the only place that was playing it was a former porn-house and they'd screwed up the advertising. Since then I've re-acquainted myself with the stuff I knew and have also rented and bought as many of his films as I can. I even have a download of Fallen Angels but it has French subtitles and I need to find some English ones to go over the top of them.
So the fact that in T-MINUS148 HOURS 32 MINUTES AND 5 SECONDS his new film My Blueberry Nights is playing at a preview in Birmingham is kind of a big deal for me. I even ignored everything about the Cannes Film Festival (something I usually follow with intense interest) last year as I wanted to know as little about the film as possible (although subsequently I'm aware it didn't get the greatest reception) to the point I've even avoided watching the trailers for it (which is impressive seeing as twice they've come on when I was in the cinema). I do though, curiously have a copy of the soundtrack (sent to me by a fellow Wong devotee) and can probably name less than ten things I know about the film.
So even though I am seeing Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood tomorrow (and should have an entry on it promptly) - I don't care at all because there's only one thing on my mind and that's Norah Jones and her evenings of blueberry. The prospect of it sounds as divine now as it did when I first heard about it.