Days of Being Wild

“1960 was a good year, the beginning of a decade; of course, it could have easily been a dream,” wrote Wong Kar Wai of his haunting paean to memory, love, and longing, set during a long and sweltering Hong Kong summer. Disaffected pretty boy Leslie Cheung drifts through a series of doomed relationships with women including Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau; every action circles backwards like the fans and clocks that surround them. Steeped in a simmering mood as ephemeral and bluesy as the film’s soundtrack, Days was Wong’s first collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and won five Hong Kong Film Awards.