Chungking Express, Happy Together, and Postmodern Space

This is the second of two essays originally written while an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, in April-May 1998 (the first being my essay on Autumn Moon, here). The two essays follow up some similar ideas. As I’ve said on the page for the Autumn Moon essay, these were the first times I’d really started to write on the subject of cities in film.

The widespread changes to the experience of everyday life that have occurred in the last twenty-five years have been reflected in culture in various ways. The rise of postmodernism represents one of the ways in which cultural products (be they movies, buildings, television programs, or whatever) have altered their aesthetics to respond to the political, technological, and social changes of this period. Postmodernism must therefore be understood not simply as an arbitrary shift in cultural fashion, but as a widespread social phenomena linked inextricably to political and economic realities that lie outside of culture (in other words, I will be affected by postmodernism even if I – somehow – watch no films, enter no buildings, and destroy my television). In my previous essay, I looked at the way in which Clara Law’s Autumn Moon explored the postmodern situation. Law’s film, I believe, has as an underlying theme an exploration of the links between changes to the capitalist economy (specifically, the development of strong global flows of money, people, technology, images, and beliefs(1)), the built form of cities, and the daily lives of people within these urban areas. I argued that Law was mounting a critique of the alienating effects of postmodern economic systems and the urban areas they created, but used the depiction of distinctly modernist architecture as way of better expressing her point.

This somewhat indirect approach to critiquing postmodernism, I suggested, was necessitated by the fact that postmodern architecture is devoted to surface appearance and easy gratification and is therefore harder to critique through images than modernist architecture. Wong Kar-wei’s Chung King Express (1994) and Happy Together (1997) are less concerned with architecture (though, as I will argue, they are still concerned with space) and therefore is not as burdened by this problem. In fact, Wong’s eclectic visual style is both postmodern and an extremely effective visual representation of postmodern experience. The problem is less relevant, however, since Wong’s work is also less critical of postmodernism: while the films depict the difficulties of life in a postmodern age, they also emphasise some of the strategies by which individuals resist the emotional disconnection which pervades Law’s Hong Kong. In Wong’s films, individuals make use of space as a means of resistance against the chaos of postmodernism, and in a sense their strategies are successful. Wong’s characters are not emotionally disconnected; in fact, the films’ greatest strength is arguably their ability to evoke the emotional agonies produced within the tortured relationships they depict. However, the characters are often physically disconnected, and this provides a link back to the postmodern ideas of time and space.

It is worth, therefore, looking again at David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity and moving beyond those sections that deal with modernist and postmodernist architecture to those that explore the more general implications of what he refers to as “time-space compression.” Harvey’s background is as a neo-Marxist geographer, and his areas of interest reflect this: after his discussion of the circulation of capital (Part II of the book), he moves into an analysis of the spatial (and temporal) experience of postmodernity (Part III)(2). Harvey argues that the traditional perception of time and space as measurable, objective phenomena is far too simplistic: rather, time and space are constructed by “material practices and processes that serve to reproduce social life.”(3) In other words, since different societies organise themselves in different ways, the perception of time and space will be perceived differently (an agrarian society, for example, will put a great emphasis on seasonal cycles which are of only trivial importance in an advanced capitalist society). Harvey also notes that these perceptions may not be stable in a mode of production such as capitalism since these practices are constantly reformed. The rise of flexible accumulation is, of course, a particularly dramatic example of such a reform and the shifts in the perception of time and space that have accompanied it have therefore been especially dramatic.

This is what Harvey is referring to when he talks of “time-space compression.” This phase can be traced back at least to the mid nineteenth century when capitalist powers started to globalise their spheres of influence in reaction to the financial crisis of the late 1840s(4), and Harvey argues that the shift in the perception of space and time in this era gave rise to modernism. Postmodernism then logically follows as a reaction to the post-Fordist restructuring of the capitalist system. The annihilation of space through time achieved by transportation advances in the nineteenth century is intensified, but this time through communication breakthroughs(5). Improved communication and broadcasting technologies (satellites, mobile phones, e-mail, the internet) create the apparent effect of an ever-shrinking world. At the same time, however, the pace of change increases. Harvey characteristically examines this from the Marxist perspective of shifts in production and consumption. Shifts in production include an emphasis upon fast turnovers and disposable goods. The growth of the service sector can thus be seen as a move away from more permanent industrial production (such as consumer goods) towards the production of experiences, which are consumed without leaving a permanent trace.(6) Commodities are fetishised and images become the ultimate short lifespan, high turnover commodity. Not only does this lead to rapid consumption, but it also creates the kind of wrenching adjustments to workforces (including flows of people from region to region) that I suggested Autumn Moon took as one of its concerns.

What kind of effect does this acceleration of daily life have upon the citizens of postmodern capitalist society? There are various different approaches to this question, but what is striking is that most emphasise the negative effects of postmodern life. The most relevant of these strains of thinking is that which stresses the disengagement of individuals from the reality around them. The explosion of communication technologies has meant that the postmodern subject is aware of spaces and locations in which they are never present. Rather than relying upon direct experience, such an individual experiences life increasingly through mediated versions of reality such as news broadcasts(7). This suggests a number of scenarios about the emotional life of those under such a system. One is the possibility of emotional manipulation. Stjepan Metrovic gives one version of such a theory in his book Postemotional Society: he argues that the recycling central to postmodern cultural production extends to the recycling of emotions to create what he calls “quasi-emotions.”(8) These are substituted for “genuine” emotions, for example, to distance people from events such as the Balkan war (Metrovic is of Croatian background) and thus smooth acceptance of aspects of government policy. Here postmodernism is stripped of its positive social aspects (such as celebration of diversity) and takes on a more sinister, dystopic quality. Metrovic refers to George Orwell repeatedly and himself suggests that his own view of postmodern society in some respects is considerably grimmer even than Orwell’s.(9)

Such an idea of manipulation is an unusual extreme in postmodernist writing, which tends to emphasise the play of different ideas rather than emphasising the power of certain cultural elites (a notion that sits more comfortably within metanarratives such as Marxism). However, the uneasiness about the role of technology is more widespread, and the idea of a mediated experience of the world is often extended (through a combination of metaphor and exaggeration) into formulations reminiscent of the science fiction of authors such as William Gibson(10). Celeste Olalquiaga follows this pattern as she talks of the ways in which our perception of ourselves is threatened by the postmodern bombardment of media images. The idea here is taken to extremes: she compares the state of the contemporary urban dweller to the psychological condition of psychasthenia, in which the boundaries between one’s body and the environment around it becomes unclear(11). Identity, in other words, is erased (or at least complicated) by excessive information about what lies outside the realm of immediate experience. The parallels to the science fiction notion of an existence entirely in virtual space (Gibson’s idea of “cyberspace”) is unmistakable. There is also a clear link back to Harvey: Olalquiaga’s description is simply a more extreme expression of the spatial compression that he talks of, with compression blurring into internalisation. Olalquiaga also talks of alterations to the experience of time, comparing the media’s incessant recycling of decontextualised images to obsessive compulsive disorder, which she describes as freezing its victim at one moment in time(12).

That both these positions (Metrovic’s and Olalquiaga’s) can be described in terms of their relation to works of fiction (Orwell’s and Gibson’s) suggests that they are perhaps best understood as extrapolations of certain existing trends rather than as social analysis. While there is no doubt that modern electronic media and communications technology drastically change our way of life, some of Olalquiaga’s claims seem overblown. Contemporary identity, for example, is freed from its body so that it has the option of

merging into the multilayered cityscape like so many other images, floating in the complete freedom of unrootedness; lacking a body, identity then affixes itself to any scenario like a transitory and discardable costume.(13)

Yet the fact is that identity does not actually lack a body and therefore does not enjoy the “complete freedom of unrootedness.” Such a situation is an idealisation with only limited correspondence to actual facts. The individual experience of daily life has not been given over completely to technological mediation, and the workings of postmodernism will be more subtle than Olalquiaga suggests.

The strength of Wong Kar-wei’s Chung King Express and Happy Together is that they take up the issue of the perception of space and time within postmodern society but avoid such an overly schematic or reductive reading. By avoiding the issue of visual appearances Wong is able to bypass the problem of cutting through surface effect that so troubled Law. He does this through manipulation of camera speed, editing rhythms, and other special effects that alter our perception of the rapidity of events; this is extremely successful at conveying the frenzied nature of life in Hong Kong. Wong’s effects based upon the manipulation of speed are varied. At the opening of Chung King Express he uses a lurching style that proceeds at (or close to) normal speed but smears between moments of clarity: the effect is somewhat like viewing freeze frames and fast motion in rapid alternation. The effect is suggestive not only of the way that our eyes flick from object to object as our attention shifts, but also of the feel (if not strictly the look) of being in a bustling crowd. On two occasions later in the film Wong uses another effect to suggest the ways in which individual experience can differ from the compressed perception of time experienced by others: characters are filmed so as to appear at normal speed while those around them are in fast motion (achieved by having the actor sit stationary while the camera is under-cranked). Fast motion reappears in Happy Together in a shot of traffic proceeding through an intersection that is used several times. In this case, the speeding up of the action reveals rhythms (the release of traffic by each green light) far less notable at regular speed.

Some of these shots have other implications that I will discuss later. What I want to stress at this point is Wong’s success at visualising postmodernity, which can perhaps be attributed to his emphasis not on the depiction of space (as with Law) but upon the experience of time. His visual style suggests the accelerated pace of life that reigns under the advanced capitalism found in Hong Kong; by then populating this environment with interesting and sympathetic characters, he is able to explore the way that life proceeds under this system. More importantly, he shows a preoccupation with the ways that characters interact that challenges simplistic ideas of technological mediation replacing real experience. And unlike Autumn Moon, which has such a stark visual design that it implies a widespread emotional malaise has descended upon Hong Kong, Wong’s work shows that the city is still emotionally alive.

Harvey’s discussion provides a good way of understanding the nature of interpersonal relations shown within these two films. Harvey commences his discussion of the effects of postmodernism upon daily social practices by looking at the diagrammatic mapping of people’s lives described by Hägerstrand. The idea here is to graph movements through time and space and show the way that limitations of time and difficulties in traversing space shape the way that these paths unfold(14). These movements are also constrained by relations with other people: social interactions (be they recreational activities or related to pursuing an income) generally require two or more people to spatially coexist for certain periods of time (“coupling restraints”). Harvey rapidly moves on from this way of describing people’s lives, noting that it fails to answer the important questions of why individuals follow particular courses and how certain coupling restraints (such as those related to employment) become conventionalised. Yet it is worth thinking about the way that the compression of time and space effects such a diagram and the ways this helps us to think about Wong’s work.

The first point to note is that time space compression drastically reduces the significance of the “friction of distance” that is one of the most important restraints to movement in the original formulation (in Chung King Express, Faye can travel to California, and in Happy Together the characters are able to reach Buones Aires(15)). This loosens up the paths, with people spending less time in each location. Such shifts begin to alter the nature of the workplace, with labor being hired increasingly on short term contracts. As the pace of life accelerates, the paths become ever more complex and it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain spatial simultaneity between any given two people. This kind of hectic lifestyle appears to make satisfying interpersonal relationships much more difficult, especially in an urban environment. It is increasingly possible for large numbers of people to coexist spatially without forming any lasting emotional bonds. The idea of people coexisting spatially but failing to connect becomes a recurring theme in Wong’s films. This point is explicitly made at the start of Chung King Express: “Every day we brush past so many other people. People we may never meet, or people who may become close friends.”

The idea of missed connections becomes a structuring principle of this film. A traditional Hollywood narrative stays on one set of people and thereby makes an implicit argument that these are the only people in their diegetic world that are worth knowing about, thus denying the possibility that connections have been missed. Chung King Express, however, makes a point of following one such connection, taking up the story of one of the first part’s most incidental characters for its second half. This reminds us that missed connections do have some kind of existence and may be of importance. On a second viewing, the sense of these two stories’ spatial coexistence becomes even more striking, as we notice the characters from the second story appearing in the space of the first: Cop 663 is seen on patrol, while Faye can be seen buying the giant Garfield toy that she will later plant in his apartment. Even the fact that the film was conceived as a triptych but ended up as only two stories helps reinforce the message that untold stories abound. Yet this comment upon society is only part of the point, since as I have been trying to suggest, it is not Wong’s style to engage in an abstract social critique at the expense of his characters. Thus the important missed connections in these two films are not those between characters who never meet, but rather those that occur within the relationships.

Both films give us examples of relationships in which spatial coexistence is failing to bring people together. In Chung King Express Faye and Cop 663 manage to effectively share an apartment for some time without ever meeting: Faye gradually appropriates the space and makes it her own, but the cohabitation is based upon the assumption that they will never meet. When they do meet each other in the apartment, it will be a cue for Faye to flee to California. In the central portion of Happy Together Po-wing and Yiu-fai similarly share an apartment as their relationship drifts apart. Realising that this sharing of space is perhaps all the relationship still has going for it at this point, Yiu-fai confiscates Po-wing’s passport and tries to keep the apartment stocked with cigarettes. Po-wing will thus not be able to leave permanently and have no excuse to leave briefly. Nevertheless, the film shows the pair spending increasingly short periods together, with the apartment usually occupied only by one of the couple at any given time. This relationship regresses into a variation upon the relationship in Chung King Express, with both men invading the other’s privacy by searching through their possessions.

As dysfunctional as this relationship is, it is important to note that in neither film does Wong show any kind of emotional shutdown occurring in his major characters. They might be living in a hectic, postmodern society, but this complicates emotional lives rather than destroying them. Many of the devices that I described as helping to depict the alterations to the perception of time in modern society also help to underline the fact that the characters are still emotionally alive. Even the most apparently impersonal shot, such as the fast-motion shot of traffic passing through an intersection in Happy Together, takes on a human aspect: in its first occurrence, this shot is underscored by music with a thumping bass beat that makes the image strongly suggestive of blood beating through a heart. The shots I have mentioned in Chung King Express of characters at a (simulated) normal speed while all around them rush by in fast motion therefore do not only juxtapose two divergent time scales: they also simultaneously comment at two levels. Firstly, they draw attention to the frenetic pace of life in Hong Kong; but secondly, they show that emotional lives continue within this environment and will greatly shape the way in which time and space are perceived. Similar uses of subjective interpretations of time occur in Happy Together when Yiu-fai and Chang part and the image is slowed down to emphasise the importance of the moment.

Given that Wong shows his characters to be so emotionally alive (though not necessarily happy), the idea that the postmodern situation is causing emotional shutdown comes to seem simplistic. Apparent inabilities to feel might simply be signs that emotions are being expressed in unusual ways. Neither policeman in Chung King Express ever cries, for example, but Wong shows us that both have their outlets: Cop 223 jogs so that his sweat will act as tears, while Cop 663 feels his apartment cries on his behalf. Similarly, the technological mediation that Metrovic so fears comes to seem far less threatening. Given the complex paths that the characters must follow and the newfound difficulty of arranging for spatial simultaneity, the use of technology comes to seem a perfectly reasonable strategy of resistance to emotional alienation. Cop 223’s obsession with his pager messages and telephone communication may not seem to represent the ideal in interpersonal relationships, but they keep him emotionally connected and allow for a final word between him and the mysterious woman that would otherwise not have occurred. In Happy Together, a tape recorder becomes a means by which Yiu-fai’s heartache can be symbolically unloaded and delivered by Chang to the end of the earth.

Space is also rehabilitated by Wong’s treatment. The space of a person’s immediate environment does not, as Olalquiaga would suggest, become trivial and secondary to the mediated image spaces presented by electronic means. In Wong’s work, the space of the home becomes crucial. As Harvey notes, individual living spaces can become “private museum[s] to guard against the ravages of time-space compression.”(16) These spaces become filled with objects that take on a strongly personal meaning; often, objects will become stand-ins for another person’s presence. This is clear in Happy Together, when a rather tacky lamp comes to represent Po-wing and, perhaps more accurately, the good time that he and Yiu-fai never got to share at Iguazu falls. These home spaces are used to stabilise the rush of life occurring elsewhere, and in some cases to stand-in for the presence of another absent individual (to the point at which a relationship with somebody’s space may substitute for a relationship with the person themselves). As such they become important sites in the battle against alienating postmodernism. Technology also helps in this process, as through the use of CDs to play music (“California Dreaming”) that stands in for other people or places.

My point here is not that Wong’s work dispels ideas that show postmodernism as having a negative of effect on interpersonal relationships. Up to a point I think Wong’s work certainly depicts a world in which meaningful relationships are more difficult to maintain, and in which it is easier to never meet those “people who may become close friends.” Certainly it could be seen as a worrying sign that expectations of relationships are so low that I consider the dysfunctional partnerships in these two films as an expression of optimism. What I wish to argue, however, is that the postmodern alterations to our perspectives on time and space simply complicate our perception of the world and our relations with those around us. Arguments that attempt to move beyond this into a dystopic vision in which the local, the real, and the emotional disappear are I think, premature. Wong Kar-wei’s films are interesting because they show a strong understanding of the complexities of this situation.

Notes

1. I am paraphrasing Appadurai, Arjun, 1994, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” in Williams & Chrismen (eds), 1994, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, Columbia University Press, pp. 328-330. (Back)

2. Harvey, David, 1990, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge. (Back)

3. Ibid., p. 204. (Back)

4.Ibid., pp. 260-265. (Back)

5. Ibid., pp. 240, 292. (Back)

6. Ibid., pp. 285-286. (Back)

7. Olalquiaga, Celeste, 1992, Megalopolis: Contemporary Cultural Sensibilities, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis & Oxford, p. xviii-xix. (Back)

8. Metrovic, Stejepan, 1997, Postemotional Society, SAGE, London, p. 3. (Back)

9. Ibid., p. xiii. (Back)

10. See, for example, Gibson, William, 1984, Neuromancer, Ace Books, New York. (Back)

11. Olalquiaga, 1992, op. cit., pp 1-2. (Back)

12. Ibid., pp. 6-7. (Back)

13. Ibid., p. 17. (Back)

14. Harvey, 1990, op. cit., p. 211-212. (Back)

15. The problem with this example is that they have great difficulty returning: but this might be attributed to the pair having traveled to a less developed country in which the friction of distance is far more significant. Certainly Faye is able to return from California in Chung King Express. (Back)

16. Harvey, 1990, op. cit., p. 292. (Back)