There is a shot towards the end of Happy Together—no spolier—where somebody is seen from afar through a long lens. The camera is spinning around him making the background move fast behind and creating an attractive effect. Having found particular favour among action directors in recent years and being the environment I work in more knowledgeable on such films than, say, Hong Kong independent ones, I had always heard this referred to as the Michael Bay shot. It is therefore with unspeakable relief that I feel now allowed to call it—at least in private, not to sound snobbish—the Wong Kar-wai shot.
Regardless of Happy Together having actual primacy in the use of telephoto tracking—I have no idea and couldn’t care less—one of the many aspects it fascinated me for is how the camera language is inventively explored without ever letting the narrative be upstaged by pure aesthetic choices. This results in a superbly composed visual storytelling that follows the characters along their emotional turmoils, and us with them.
In Happy Together the force of nature looms in the form of longing and distant memories over the tiny, dimly lit urban spaces in which its animal souls wander. Steamy kitchens, shabby flats, smokey locals, and narrow streets is where life gets caged, or where to tango steps it gets poisoned with passion.
