He was a writer. He thought he was writing about the future, but he was actually writing about the past. In his new novel, every once in a while, a mysterious train leaves for 2046.

Everyone who goes there has the same intention: to recapture 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 him.

In “2046”, a writer (Tony Leung) is working on a book about a mysterious train that travels to the year 2046. He thinks he’s writing a science-fiction story, but as time passes, he starts to realize it’s actually an autobiographical adventure.

A loosely-related sequel to “In the Mood for Love,” the film took nearly five years to produce, and shares something of the same style, including a characteristic melancholy. Although “2046” has many similarities to its predecessor, “In the Mood for Love,” it’s more a variation on a theme, rather than a sequel.

“2046” takes the viewer on sporadic leaps in time between the present, past and future. The story is about memories of lost loves; memories that fill the head of one man, in a virtuoso performance by Tony Leung, as the writer Chow Mo-wan.

Chow Mo-wan is a writer who has affairs with different women. The women always stay in hotel room 2046; he has the room next door. In the novel he is writing, a train leaves at irregular intervals to travel to the year 2046.

All the passengers have the same aim: to recapture lost memories. No one ever comes back. The writer is seemingly stuck in his past, fixated on an impossible love affair he had with a woman called Li-chun. His affairs are a desperate attempt either to forget her, or to rediscover her -- even the main character in his novel is like her. But when he, too, catches a train to 2046...

“2046” is a surreal visualization of desire and the inability to surrender to anyone but oneself; a dazzling, melancholy film about the inconstancy of memory, love and fate.

In the end, the film's message seems to support Chow's assertion that "it's no good meeting the right person either too soon or too late."

Sasha Soren

(c) Sasha Soren 2005

This article first appeared in "arte six" - all the arts. all the time.
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