My Blueberry Nights - Cannes One Sheet **UPDATE - Trailer!**

it would appear that there are perty images after chris doyle. these images comfort me.

Meh. They're still not as perty as Chris Doyle's, though. Maybe after this, they can kiss and make up? 2046 was such a bad mistake.

Yeah, gotta agree.

Looks like just another "foreign" film with pretty Hollywood actors a la CLOSER. Wong Kar Wai's getting way too high on his own cinematic b.s.

Not sure if this has been posted yet but here's the teaser trailer:
http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=18730399&cfilm=111805.html

that trailer was sucky. i like wong kar wai. im going to go smoke now because it looks like cool sadness when jude law does it.

is this gonna explore any emotional terrains outside Chungking Express & Fallen Angel? yeh jude: lung cancer couldn't ask for a better spokesman.

2 things:

1)Why on earth is Rachel Weisz featured on the top of the poster like that, when she's supposed to play a small part, while Norah Jones is the star?

2) Is it me, or does it look like Norah Jones' character is exactly like (or may actually be the same as) Faye Wong's character in Chungking Express? Didn't she have a dream about going to California?

Cause Rachel is way cuter?!

I really wasn't teased much by this at all.

Wow - how completely underwhelming. I can only hope that WKW had nothing to do with that teaser trailer. Right? He couldn't have put together some that boring.

Oh, wait. 2046.

So far....the reviews have been tepid. Better than 2046 but that's not really saying much. IMHO, WKW seems overly focused on trying to placate the artistic sensibilities of western critics. He seems to have this addiction to the Cannes jury's approval.

Grady.....glad to see you're still lurking around. We miss your insightful cinematic commentary. We're awaiting a reincarnation of your asian movie blog.

The reviews have been of the "good but not great" variety but then again 2046 faired much worse and judging by the comments here is not well liked. I for one absolutely love 2046 and am a bonafide wkw fan so I'm still expecting this to be great. I can defend 2046 against anyone but what's the point, you either get it or you don't. Mind you these are the same people who think Fallen Angels is better than "ok" but that's another discussion all together.

One thing that i have always wondered is whether us non-HK viewers think so much of wkw (and asian cinema in general) is that it is so exotic . For instance, what sounds philosophical and deep may work better being read (as subtitles) than when spoken. For instance Tony Leung's many monologues which when read are filled with much insight may sound a tad silly to native Cantonese speakers. This may explain why wkw's films generally don't perform well in his homeland. He's always been considered a more western filmmaker, much like kkd is out of South Korea.

your point is interesting, ijaffery. but when i watch subtitled movies i still listen to the way it is being said by the actor. so i really don't think that i'm missing anything.

i am really interested in what anyone else has to say about this topic.

lol, not missing anything? sure, paying attention to their tone and locution is better than just blindly reading the subtitles. but it's rather presumptuous to believe that you can catch all the same nuances that a native or even near-native speaker will, don't you think?

yep. I'm an unabashed 2046 fan!

2046 :(

still, this trailer was slightly debasing; always looked forward to wkw and his alsters since they have that grand quality of placing you in some other world. Portman, Weiss and Law what other world?

Cat power in trailer as well - ruined it 10x

I agree with what ijaffery wrote, in fact I was thinking just that when I watched the trailer. Reading Faye Wong's character's subtitles in Chunking Express was almost like reading a passage from a novel, it engaged my brain in a very different way than listening to Nora Jones' character speak similar words was much flatter and less interesting to me, I fear the subtitles my prove to be an integral part of the WKW film experience, but I guess we will see....

I like that line of thinking, ijaffery. I had never considered it before but it fits really well with a nagging feeling I've had in years of arguments with friends regarding foreign vs native english cinema. I always put it down to just liking the directors' work, but that idea that it engages your mind like a book... well, that certainly sounds plausible.
Also, there's a lot to be said for delivery. I don't think that WKW is necessarily a subtitles only man - that languorous internal monologue has been carried off pretty well in I guess quite a few films. The only one that comes to mind at this hour would be Clive Owens in Croupier... which was not 100%, but pretty consistent.

And, sorry, but I coughed loud and hard when I read "so i really don't think that i'm missing anything". I've been studying Japanese for a fair while now, and am currently on exchange here, and the more I learn, the more I realise that there are many more levels to inflection and word play than I first assumed, and then you get into dialects, and then you can go even further into contemporary cultural/subcultural nuances, none of which can really be accurately translated easily (which is why a lot of fansubs wind up liberally including footnotes). You are definitely missing out on something.
But that doesn't in the slightest invalidate your opinion of the film - it's just your perspective. A native speaker might be able to understand the language well, but not know anything about the subject - while you could be well versed in the subject, and thus understand a much larger percentage of the references made.

But anyway, that subtitle as book-reading-part-of-the-brain-engaging idea... yeah. That sounds pretty on the money.

Oh, and the movie could be alright. Getting a little sick of Jude Law after watching Breaking and Entering, but I adored 2046, so I'll give it a shot when I get the chance.

Also another layer to consider is the fact that the character's wkw's films often speak in different languages, even to each other in dialogue. For instance in 2046 Zhiyi Zhang spoke entirely in her native Mandarin while Tony Leung spoke in his native Cantonese. Even wkw seems to be saying it doesn't really matter what language these words are being spoken as long as the words being conveyed. I'm very curious to hear what HK audiences thought having to decypher these conversations without the aid of subtitles. I know that most Hk citizens have at least a tersery knowledge of Mndarin but one has to believe that much is lost in translation. As Joseph K said, simple anglo translations rarely due the actually meanings behind terms in these languages proper justice. I also agree to an extent that such voluminous narration is heavily reliant on the delivery of those words (Croupier being an excellent example, also a favorite of mine). Clive Owen even sparkled in this capacity in wkw's BMW short The Follow. So I don't want to imply that the wkw's style lacks any appeal outside of his familiar surroundings and players. But of course that was just a short film, it is still yet to be seen how it will play out in feature length. As ever, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

And I tire of the Jude Law bashing, the man can act his ass off (see Gattaca, Road to Perdition, Closer, et al). In my opinion he fits right in line with wkw's ouevre.

Also, if anyone is interested you can find a pdf of Studio Canal's press dossier for the film at:

http://bossa.nerim.net/actualite/2007/My%20Blueberry%20Nights/ecrans%20blueberry%20nights/MBN_DP%5B2%5D.pdf

It has some addition stills from the film, and if you can read French perhaps some added insight.

interesting discussion...as a native cantonese speaker (w/ a peppering of mandarin); and an unabashed WKW fan - IMHO the dialogue and VOs in Chinese are not perceived as particularly profound. it can at times seem cliche and flaky. it should be noted that chinese is fundamentally a visual language (in that it doesn't convey abstract ideas well - ideas like solitude or alienation), and any discussions of emotions must delve into metaphors (i.e. the way tony leung addresses the inanimate objects in his apartment in chungking express)..in this way the language / subtitles become symbolic rather than descriptive -- which is part of the appeal of WKW's films. Equally this can be a cause for why his films generally don't do well in HK. Chinese audiemnces simply do not look for the metaphors because it is not an element of classic Chinese aesthetics (this can be argued to lead right back to their linguistic structures) - so i agree with the assertion that WKW is a Western auteur (he has often mentioned in interviews his own influences often come from the west - from Melville and French new wave to Manuel Puig's novels...
thx for the illuminating discussion