2046 (2004)

2046 is a film about being lost, and being stuck, trying to get answers where they don't exist. Of course, I didn't know this as I watched this, because I started this film with zero awareness that this movie is a sequel to 阿飞正传 and 花样年华. Despite feeling lost basically the whole movie, I still enjoyed the sheer whimsicalness and romanticism of 2046. 

Even though I did not connect the backstory of Chow in In the Mood for Love to this story, I nonetheless felt the anxiety of his character. In Chow's novel, the main character falls in love with a robot with aging hardware, causing delayed reaction time to everything. He never knows if the robot is in love with him or not, because no matter what he does, her reaction will not come until much later, and when they do happen he is not there to see them, or know that it's even about him. In the end, he concluded that it didn't wasn't because of the delay that she didn't react, it was because she was already in love with someone else. 

Love is about meeting the right person in the right place at the right time. Sometimes it really feels the chance of that happening is vanishingly small. What if you missed that train and can never catch it again? If something didn't work the last time, can you really find out why and extrapolate to the future? 
In Chow's novel, he decided that the robot was already in love with someone else, but in real life, he doesn't get an answer. Jing-wen says that the ending of his story was too sad and asks him to change it, but is it really? In 2047, there was at least certainty. In 2046, all he has is the terrifying unknown.