I was slightly surprised how much I was engrossed in this short experiment cum advertisement that was sponsored (so the plot description tells me) by Phillips electronics. Not so much surprised that Wong Kar Wai would experiment and get to work through genre as he pleased, rather that he could hook me so quickly in what means to be a visual ad for the new LCD Neon lights from the company. And while Wong Kar Wai doesn't shy away from showing what is being sold, on the contrary you are getting such a splendiferous display of the products that they take on a whole other life of their own into the world of cinema (and WKW, nache), it is about the style, about the tactility and cold sensuality that this filmmaker has envisioned full stop.
What I think I love about this is that is is unfiltered eye candy, and it is Neo-Noir, dystopian dream with the beautiful Amelie Daure as this mystery femme fatale hit-person who is searching after (or really in the control of) the 'Lightcatcher', who cares what it's called its the Thing that gets Our Hero into trouble, and because it is a short subject form we can invest in this story since it is so sustained an exercise.
I like the same mold this comes from in its feature-form from WKW (2046), and this isn't to say There's Only One Son is greater or denser, as it is isn't, but what you get here is Wong getting to play in seven minutes (9 with credits) in how to show his star through blocking, how the lights obscure her, how the shapes in a car shooting one another from afar take on abstract connotations, how she moves towards the camera as this ephemeral object that can only exist in the movies (preferably with French language and subtitles I assume).
This is all to say the director embraces what is the surface as the text, and it is thrilling to see what he does with these uncanny locations, the interiors that look like some futuristic factory, and the very loose story leads his imagination to run wild. I know, I know you can say it is a "minor" work, but I don't care about that. He knows what he wants, he's pushing the form with an eye towards what the "future" could be, and really (a point if not the point of it all) aren't we already there in the future that we were told about as children? This is exciting, stimulating and sexy.
