Millennium Mambo (2001)

Jan 15

Mood piece for romantics of Taipei cinema.

Presentation:

If Jia Zhangke and Wong Kar Wai made a film, this is probably pretty close to what it’d be like. Film, dirty mixed nighttime lamps and flickering fluorescents immediately bring you back to Fallen Angels and Chungking Express. The Taipei film follows the young beautiful Shu Qi reminiscing about toxic relationships through neon nightclubs, Japan snow and Taiwan cityscapes. It’s very observational utilizing long lenses inside small apartments so that the audience feels like they are in the other room listening in. Each shot is incredibly long allowing the camera to pan slowly and follow characters moving around, creating a documentary-like atmosphere. Although the film is only 100 minutes, the film feels over 2 hours long because the average cut feels like it’s about 5 minutes. This makes it unimaginable when the director says the film was supposed to be 6 hours long. Vicky and Hao Hao’s relationship is the main conflict in this film, though Hao Hao performs such an irredeemable asshole that it makes you kinda wanna yell at the characters. You’re sort of just rooting for Vicky the whole time, which is the only reason you’ll watch this film. She carries the film with her beauty, naivety, flaws, sexiness and pathetic decisions. It’s a perfect casting and allows the film to have the spirit of searching for meaning you’d see in Buddha Mountain or Perks of Being a Wallflower, except with the emotional feel of a mature Wong Kar Wai film. After a while you realize you’re not watching a film, just experiencing a poor girl’s stuck relationships, which is relatable if you understand Chinese sensibilities and idealization of early romances.

Conclusion:

In some ways this film is quite unique. The complementary cinematography is fittingly natural, casually panning across the scene allowing you to follow the drama and story instead of focusing on visuals. The beginning is really well done, but doesn’t deliver in the end as it progressively gets slower and even boring at times, so much so that the person next to me fell asleep. Ultimately it’s a mood piece for people that like cinema for those nostalgic feelings, reminiscing in past love and beauty, illustrated by Vicky’s narration telling us what is about to happen. I’m not a fan of this storytelling device, which seems very derivative of Wong Kar Wai. What it has going for it is it never tries to be something bigger. It’s like the director’s only notes are to “go and act like teenagers!”, allowing the scene to play out as true to life as possible. As a result the film feels raw but so much freedom is allowed that there isn’t a strong direction or message. The title reveals it’s about bringing you back and romanticizing past relationships, even if they were all bad memories because it marks the dawn of a new millennium. But without Shu Qi’s captivating presence, I don’t think audiences would care and this film falls flat. Either you get it or you don’t, those that will should surely love it, but even so I don’t think it was executed convincingly enough to entertain you.

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