Norah Jones in “My Blueberry Nights.”

“My Blueberry Nights” may not be visual poet, Wong Kar Wai’s best film to date when looked at in context of his glorious filmography (his best being “In the Mood for Love,” “Happy Together,” “Chungking Express” and “2046.”) As a standalone cinematic disorientation reciting the loves and losses of strangers in neon lit and timeless romanticism, it deserves nothing less than a deeper look. Disdain for the film has arisen almost uncontrollably since the film opened in Cannes last year to deaf ears and blind hearts, an inclination that this reviewer cannot comprehend.

In her acting debut, songstress Norah Jones plays Elizabeth who is a conflicted soul. At once, she longs for the security of the past as well as a fresh start. By involving herself in the lives of strangers also suffering from all sorts of emotional confliction and heartbreak, she can forget about her problems, which seem similar but ultimately diminutive in comparison. She is restless, and moves around America, not America as we know it but an amorously lit world where Wong envisions how wavering emotional connections can be and how easily one can find themselves in over their heads, picking up the odd job and the odd encounter on the way.

One such encounter occurs in a New York café, both inviting and surreal, where she, unknowingly, stumbles into a dazed once-in-a-lifetime connection with its handsome British owner, Jeremy (Jude Law). Both are not in the right mind to notice cupid at work, and Elizabeth heads off to her next pit stop – running away from whatever chaos she thinks she is leaving behind.

Along the lonely road, with a mixture of bright lights, cloud-less skies and infinite possibility, the chronicles of her vicissitudes intertwine with the fore mentioned strangers. She, now going under the name “Lizzie,” meets Arnie (David Strathairn) in Memphis, who persistently meanders between reality in a alcohol-tainted daze and one where the love of his life, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz), wants nothing to do with him. When this particular encounter draws to a close and its participants depart to another parallel universe, Elizabeth hits the road again.

It is only a few moments later, for the viewer at least, she, now going by “Beth,” meets Leslie (Natalie Portman) – a gambler who is all talk and play, whose cynicism does not overpower or conceal her relentless emotions as well as she thinks it does. Rather than deal with her issues, she lives her life buoyantly hopping from one metaphorical high to the next, similar to Beth’s own homemade remedy for pain.

These stumbled upon human encounters are intense and beguiling, mostly because we are seeing them through the eyes of an astute observer. Elizabeth’s story is not the focus of the film but is fundamentally the reason we are given for the unexpected pleasure of taking time out of the boredom of reality to divulge into others stories – intoxicating in complexity and that essentially go nowhere. They are not told in a factual account, but rather as if they are being told by someone who has drifted in between the lines of one of Elizabeth’s postcards, not too much information is given, but just enough to spark the imagination and illuminate the quarrels of existence - how the leisure of human nature can both cultivate and destroy passion, both selfless and demanding.

Much has been said about the performance of Norah Jones, who, with little acing experience, displays a range befitting to her particular role, and brings a somewhat naïve honesty to the role that a more accomplished actress may not have been able to deliver. Without ever being commanding, she intelligently steps aside as the other stories unfold, held together with pitch-perfect acing from the rest of the cast. While each a standout in their own right, David Strathairn leaves the biggest impression of the lot, sizzling with heartache and helplessness – he is the everyman with simple needs but gets in his own way too often that he just cannot open his eyes to reality. The same could be said for just about every character in the film, they are flawed and distant but not to the point that they become completely unidentifiable.

Moody and philosophical, “My Blueberry Nights” is very much true to Wong’s essence of filmmaking. He does not rely on heavy handed plot structures and narrative arcs, he rather allows atmosphere and consequential expressions of the sheer volatility of love to overpower, something that fans of his have come to savour, yet it is the very same fans, besides the obvious minority, that are left dissatisfied. “My Blueberry Nights” is no immense achievement, but is an admirable experiment in just how far expressionism and realism can be intertwined before the line becomes blurred.

Speaking of blurred, it goes without saying that the film is a wonder to behold, visually speaking. Haunting in its dreamlike cinematography, illuminating its geographical locations as well as internal happenings with textural undercurrents to match the noticeable visual defiance of the films props and settings, the bars, the pies, the train, the faces, to name but a few. Visual beauty is counterbalanced with a flowing soundtrack, an elliptical jukebox , with effervescent tracks high in melancholy and optimism some by Norah Jones and Cat Powers as well. The music and visuals are but a key to the endlessly fascinating door that is “My Blueberry Nights,” and it would be a mistake to take the film at face value, what lies beneath is every bit as pungent and luminous.

Fatac Rating: ****½

My Blueberry Nights. Directed by Wong Kar Wai. Written by Wong Kar Wai and Lawrence Block. Cinematography by Darius Khondji. Music by Ry Cooder. Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn. Running Time: 90 minutes. Age Restriction: 13 L. Rating out of five stars.

Released in South Africa on the 1st of May 2008.
Viewed at a public screening with an audience of ordinary moviegoers.