Story is a State of Mind

The secrets, lies, and layers of deception about Diane Dewey's origins were meant for her protection—but eventually, they imploded. Living with her family in suburban Philadelphia, Diane had grown up knowing she was born in Stuttgart and adopted at age one from an orphanage. She'd been told her biological parents were dead. Then, in 2002, when she was forty-seven years old, Diane got a letter from Switzerland: her biological father, Otto, wanted to bring her into his life. With that, her world shifted on its axis.

Film told in flashbacks of an older man's obsession for a woman who can belong to no-one but can frustrate everyone. The backdrop is SternbergÍs surreal and fantastic Carnaval in Spain. In a café the older man details his encounters with the heart breaker that his younger friend has only just met at the parade. Forewarned, the young man swears he will avoid the fate of his friend, but rushes all the same to his evening rendezvous. A dreamlike story of frustrated, lost romance, spoken in the past tense, never really resolved.

A Hong Kong writer finds inspiration from the women he's encountered in his past in this futuristic story of love and memory from Wong Kar Wai, who continues the story he began in his acclaimed masterpiece In the Mood for Love. Remembering back to the early 1960s, when he lived in the Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong, Chow (Tony Leung) writes an erotic story that begins with a mysterious woman who lived in room 2046. Chow moves into room 2047 and begins an affair with a beautiful prostitute who now rents the mysterious woman's room. As he writes his story, which he sets in the future year 2046, Chow tells of a place where people travel to recapture lost memories; he is the first one to return. Nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, 2046 also stars Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Faye Wong and Maggie Cheung.