Deadpoet’s Cave

today was unusual. i discovered that the COSDUmembers yahoo group had mysteriously vanished. no trace. just a simple message: There is no group called COSDUmembers. yahoo? boo-hoo…

while trying to find out if i was the only one with this problem - after all, strange things happen in this place we call earth - i got a hurried invitation for coffee.

so i met up with elaine (and boon wee in passing). she was my north melbourne neighbour, michelle’s and tiffani’s housemate. we talked and walked. i have to say it was a refreshing chat. we touched on movies, and we somehow talked about wong kar wai. elaine said he has a new film coming up. didn’t really catch the title. bought a birthday present for a friend on my way home.

anyway, a friday night at home. par for the course. read a thread in clubsnap about themes for photoshoots. have no bloody idea what they are going on about. ancient chinese history/mythology? beats me. then someone mentions trying to capture the feel of one of the movie posters for wong kar wai’s in the mood for love.

being me, i google and manage to find the movie poster this guy is referring to. i also unearthed an excellent site on wkw films’ soundtracks and wkw in general. found out more about his latest film, 2046:

Official Synopsis
He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention…..to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back- except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.

Extended Synopsis
The film is set in Chow Mo Wan’s (Tony Leung) hotel room from ‘In the Mood for Love’, room 2046. He is trying to escape from the memory of his broken ‘love affair’ with Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung). He meets a prostitute played by Zhang Ziyi, whom he falls in love with. This inspires him to write a story about love, time and memory, set in the future - the story is called 2046. In this story, there is a mysterious train that randomly appears where the passengers can travel from the present into the year 2046. They ‘ride’ to the year 2046 in order to retreive lost memories. Anybody who boards this train cannot return from the future, apart from one man that is, Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung).

Some additional details: Faye Wong apparently plays a robot in the year 2046, She has two men who are in love with her, played by Kimura Takuya (Japanese TV actor) and Chang Chen (Hero). Also Gong Li plays another robot in the future.

robots?

wong kar wai?

anyway, i read the soundtracks faq and come across references to unicornio. this is a haunting song used in wkw’s bmw film, the follow.

Unicornio
Mi unicornio azul ayer se me perdió.
Pastando lo dejé y desapareció.
Cualquier información bien la voy a pagar.
Las flores que dejó
no me han querido hablar.

Mi unicornio azul ayer se me perdió,
no sé si se me fue, no sé si extravió,
y yo no tengo más que un unicornio azul.
Si alguien sabe de él, le ruego información.
Cien mil o un millón, yo pagaré.
Mi unicornio azul se me ha perdido ayer,
se fue.

Mi unicornio y yo hicimos amistad,
un poco con amor, un poco con verdad.
Con su cuerno de añil pescaba una canción,
saberla compartir era su vocación.

Mi unicornio azul ayer se me perdió,
y puede parecer acaso una obsesión,
pero no tengo más que un unicornio azul
y aunque tuviera dos yo sólo quiero aquel.
Cualquier información, la pagaré.
Mi unicornio azul se me ha perdido ayer,
se fue.

if you can get your hands on this song, try to find the version by cecila noel and jeff rona. i read the english translation. does not do the tune nor the spanish lyrics justice.

• Wong Kar Wai Retrospective at Pitch Black Cafe
• Chariots of Fire
• Looky what we have here!
• Commemorating, Remembering and Reflecting