It Takes Blues To Tango with Hannah Fleisch - HAPPY TOGETHER (1997)

09/06/22 • 70 min

As they brave the always-dangerous waters of Wong Kar-Wai's melancholy, Dolly Back is joined by Hannah Fleisch, a UofT graduate student with an extensive knowledge of world cinemas! Whether it's a sob at the end of the world or a family photograph at the center of yours, this famed Hong Kong filmmaker turns his viewfinder to every nook and cranny that conceals a piece of home - everywhere from a loved one and they food they make for us, all the way down to the ways we throw ourselves into work on the opposite side of the world. As Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung desperately attempt to repair a failing relationship and its many artifacts, so too do the filmmakers reach across time and space for a city on the precipice of change, thriving in the cracks of the film's editing and the numerous echoes across cultures that populate its text. It takes two to tango dear listener, and we invite you to join us on our journey into the politics of immigrant and diaspora cinemas, queer filmmaking, and how WKW's singular style brings them together into one heartbreaking experience!
Hugo Córdova Quero's Article - "Queer(N)Asian Im/Migrants’ Connectedness: An Inter-Contextual Decolonial Reading of Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together"Svetlana Boym's Article - "Nostalgia"
BOMB Magazine Interview - "Wong Kar-Wai by Han Ong"

Previous Episode

Fuel The Jet - TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

Enter Bayhem - a world of impulses and entropy that has perhaps never been as potent and singular as it was in Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)! To your hosts, it is a miracle this film exists - even moreso that it sustained commercial success in spite of its WGA strike affected script, IP origins, and near-total departure from its predecessor's setting. As Optimus Prime and Megatron dip their feet into the sense impressions of Operation Desert Storm, this episode examines its impossible assembly, jarring reliance on analog filmmaking, and this film's unholy pact with producer Steven Spielberg's coming-of-age films of old. Although we don't quite have a Linkin Park needle drop - DOLLY BACK, TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT!
Roger Ebert's Article - "The Fall of the Revengers"

Next Episode

Lovers in Waiting - PIERROT LE FOU (1965)

Between Warholian pop art and Diego Velasquez, Jean Luc-Godard searches for a joie de vivre in perhaps his most astonishingly eye-popping and impressionist work. As iconic screen couple Jean Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina hit the roads of Europe, this hallowed director and his characters make peace with their demons on love, life, and literature, breaking down screen barriers and the form's enduring practices along their way!
This episode is in tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, a master and shepherd of the form who challenged himself and his audiences to never settle for the sandbox presented to them.
Richard Brody's Essay - Pierrot le fou: Self-Portrait in a Shattered Lens