Happy Togther

Happy Together’s original title translates to ‘Spring Light at First Glance’. An ephemeral moment of happiness and hope before the onset of reality. The beginning of a romance, the hopeless obsession. The possibility of a future without the limitations of past experiences. One brief moment before quirks become flaws, before a kiss becomes any other kiss, before the horizon emerges from a sea of possibilities. That was the reality both for the protagonists Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai, drawn to their toxic romance like a celestial body to the gravity of a collapsed star, and for Wong Kar-Wai and his beloved Hong Kong in 1997, the year of Happy Together’s release.

Wong Kar-Wai sat at the epicenter of one of cinema’s true golden eras, the Hong Kong cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. Directors like John Woo (with his breakout hit The Killer) and Wong Jing (with films as varied as the wuxia The New Legend of Shaolin and the erotic thriller Naked Killer) brought a frenzied, bloody, irreverent take to traditional Hollywood action films. Contrary to collective memory though, the era was not solely defined by the rise of Hong Kong action and its (almost exclusively) male directors. Romcoms, historical dramas, fantasies, and comedies were released by the dozen in a wild blur of artistic production.   Wong Kar-Wai entered this era and countered the frenetic pace with his melancholy, muted, tales of love lost and love found amid the busy streets of Hong Kong. 1994’s Chungking Express would be his first international breakout (and proved so moving to a young Quentin Tarantino that Tarantino would finance some of WKW’s future international releases). Then followed his wuxia film Ashes of Time before returning to form again with Fallen Angels in 1995.

In Hong Kong, people had been thinking, stressing, hoping, praying, about the year 1997 since 1984’s Joint Declaration. As ‘97s handoff to the People’s Republic of China approached, WKW wondered about the future and ached for the past. Hong Kong had been occupied by the British since 1841, and societal change was imminent. We only have to turn to the news of Hong Kong today to see the marked change from the wildly free metropolis of Chungking Express. ‘Let’s start again…’ was not just Ho Po-Wing’s hopeful refrain, but perhaps WKW’s optimism towards the handover. 2000’s masterpiece In the Mood for Love would eventually answer show his newly tempered expectations, its rich colors a tapestry for the ghosts of yesteryear to wander the free Hong Kong once again. Several crew members would move to Buenos Aires after the filming of Happy Together, hoping to find their own lives and loves in Argentina.

The handoff would also prove consequential for Hong Kong’s rich and vibrant LGBTQ+ community, the loss of most of their rights rapidly approaching. Some, like the couple in this film, fled for greener, more tolerant, pastures. Others, like Leslie Cheung, could not resist the pull of Hong Kong and were drawn back in to survive the best they could. What would bring two lovers to the antipode of their home? To a foreign country with a different language and wildly different climate? Fear of the unknown, fear of repression, a desire to be free to love. WKW, in contrast to all of his other films, allows his characters to experience a carnal, desperate, physical love, in direct defiance of the cultural censorship that was soon to come. Happy Together would prove to be one of the bedstones of the New Queer Cinema movement, joining Paris Is Burning, My Own Private Idaho, and The Watermelon Woman as one of the touchstones of the era.

Happy Together’s production, like all WKW films, was a troubled one (once again beginning production without a screenplay). Filming that was supposed to take three weeks ended up lasting three months. Leslie Cheung, a Cantopop global icon in his own right, had to leave to go on a previously scheduled tour before the end of production. PAs working on the production stated that they were threatened for filming, and production was halted after threats of violence several times.  WKW did not even have an ending to his story, although he eventually discovered that, “[Tony’s character] should go back to Hong Kong, our own experience taught us that.” 

 And WKW landed in Argentina with only “...two characters in mind. We’d managed to find a city to put them in, but nothing else.” As he explained to his regular collaborator Tony Leung, the story would be about a man flying from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires in order to get his father out of prison. Leslie Cheung would play his father’s lover, from whom Tony would learn about this hidden part of his father’s life. Tony’s plane touched down in Argentina, and the plan changed. The story would be about two lovers fleeing, two toxic individuals constantly returning to each other to find easy familiarity in a sea of unknowns. Christopher Doyle kept the camera constantly filming, the original cut was over three hours long, but several threads and plots were dropped on the cutting room floor in the service of the austere story that would eventually emerge. 

WKW, as he always does, found beauty in the isolation. Cooks playing soccer in an ally, anguished sobs into a recorder, the most beautiful tango in the history of cinema, the rushing of water into the void. Love, even toxic love, can be a rush of intoxication, and love, especially toxic love, for your homeland can wound far more than any lover. The rest of the world agreed, as WKW won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival and Happy Together would be released to widespread acclaim.

Tasting Notes

Here we can talk a little more about cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s absolute command of his craft in the service of the story. The close-up and medium shots used throughout the film never let you fully escape the characters or the city of Buenos Aires. (Even the beautiful shot of the Plaza del Mayo is literally framed by time). The Iguazú Falls become the maw of an alien beast on a different planet. Memories are preserved in black and white (or are they?), the rest of the film is experienced in an intoxicating rush of colors. Characters blocked in non-traditional placements, and the background of a scene can contain just as much as the foreground. The soundtrack would be WKW’s first to deviate from his American and Cantonese pop hits, featuring a beautiful amalgamation of Latin American music. The production seems barebone and sparse, but everything was meticulously planned (the wallpaper in Tony’s apartment building was custom designed and installed for the film). And of course, his customary use of step-printing helped to highlight the characters’ emotional turmoil.

Grandiflora Wine Pairing:

Poggiosecco, Etrah Pet Nat from Tuscany, Italy

Do Ferreiro, Albarino from Rias Baixas, Spain

Domaine d'Oupia, Les Heretiques Red from Languedoc, France