2046

After the huge success of In the Mood for Love, Wong's next film was eagerly awaited, spurred on by a production phase that lasted over five years, during which Wong lost himself in the labyrinth of his own cinematic dreams. Even the title of the film is a mystery: a future date? A utopian place? Or just the number of a room in a hotel in Singapore in 1966, where a writer (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) sits writing a science fiction novel (called 2046) while being overwhelmed by memories of past love affairs (Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Faye Wong)? While the story sinks into dreamlike stasis, Wong loses himself in feverish cinematic dreams that occasionally evoke Fassbinder, Alain Resnais or François Truffaut, but above all his own. One of the most fascinating and noble enigmas in the cinema of the new millennium. (Christoph Huber)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum