Chungking Express (1994)

★★★½
Chungking Express is uniquely Hong Kong. It is a movie that captures the essence of the city during its late colonial period. As I write this, the city is in the news constantly for its seemingly never-ending demonstrations, a reaction to the Communist Chinese’s steady encroachment on the territory. I understand the pushback against the Chinese. Freedom is far more desirable than living under a brutal collectivist tyranny. I don’t know where this is all going, but luckily, we have this little gem from Wong Kar-Wai to remind us of a time when the city wasn’t tearing itself apart. Chungking Express pulsates with life. It’s crowded, sometimes hectic. A city of millions crammed into a small area will have its problems, but there’s also an identity that will inevitably emerge from the chaos. We see that here, with the bustling Chungking Mansion shops and the nightlife of Lan Kwai Fong. We also see how loneliness can still prevail in this urban jungle. Wong Kar-Wai examines the lonely lives of two Hong Kong cops and does so with an eye towards the surroundings. This is probably the only movie that I’ve seen that made me want to visit the locations. They are as much a part of the story as the dialogue.

Germinal (1993)

★★★
The following is a term paper I wrote for a French literature class back in 2000. I think I got a B+ for this.

Realism is the literary style that focuses on precision and rigorous details. The works of Balzac and Flaubert helped pave the way for realism, but another style called naturalism pushed the concept of realism even further. It paid even greater attention to what was real, and while realism sometimes contains a hint of idealism, naturalism contains no hint at all. Instead, there is an absolute faithfulness to reality. Émile Zola worked at making sure every detail was accurate, in order not to evoke any ideal or symbolist elements. He employed the idea of naturalism in his book Germinal.