Thirty years from now, My Blueberry Nights may be considered a good film. It may even be considered a great film. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I selected for my film-watching group (19 years old and still going strong) Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), his first made-in-America production, shot in youthquake California. It was an utter disaster upon its release: unhip, out-of-touch,pretentious. Harry Medved consigned it to his infamous Fifty Worst Films of All Time book (1978), which I still have on my shelf.

Some years later, I caught up with it on laserdisc (I still have some of those on my shelf, too.) I was entranced. Yes, the sensibility was Martian, as if the great director was visiting student revolutionaries from another galaxy. But it was a genuinely sincere attempt at engagement, and Antonioni’s attempt to get inside their mindset was valiant. As was customary, it was immaculately made, with an impeccable period score. The explosive climax, where our entire consumer culture blows up as Pink Floyd plays, was an unforgettably lunatic vision—terrifying,ridiculous, and beautiful, all at once. I had prepared my group for the worst,underplaying the film’s unique qualities. I had overstated the case: The picture, which had aged into an invaluable cultural artifact, went down fine, flaws and all.

My Blueberry Nights bears some relation. The noted Hong Kong director, Wong Kar Wai, makes his English-language debut with an American-made film that glides from New York to Memphis to Reno. (Coincidentally, he and Antonioni, acclaimed visual stylists both, were bunkmates in the 2004 omnibus film Eros.) The stakes, however, are lower. Antonioni injected himself into our national muddle, and was crucified by the right and left for doing so. Wong has Fed-Exed his muse to the West. His description of the film—“Sometimes the tangible distance between two persons can be quite small but the emotional one can be miles…I wanted to explore these expanses, both figuratively and literally, and the lengths it takes to overcome them”—pretty much applies to any of his acclaimed pictures.

I’m not his biggest acolyte. Certain audiences groove on the languorous pace and slowly-burning emotions of films like 2000’s In the Mood for Love and 2004’s 2046. I’m friends with some of these folks, and they don’t understand why I’m not on board. Or, rather, why I left the boat: I enjoy earlier films, like 2004’squirky Chungking Express and 1997’s fraught gay romance Happy Together, just fine. They had a beating heart and pulse. Gradually, however, he drifted toward being an interior decorator. The human element receded into the background; the period furnishings and wallpaper communicated the stories, off altering relationships that play out in a few airless rooms. Some find this entrancing; I get restless. (more…)