Random Comments

I enjoyed watching the movie for the second time (the first was 11 years ago) and, this time, I appreciated reading the numerous, and informative, comments posted here. Olivier Assayas and Maggie Cheung are big favorites of mine and, over the ensuing years, each has added a number of good films to their resume.

I'm still unsure of the meaning behind several of the situations I wondered about the first time I watched the movie but, over the years, I've decided that there are not always reasons for what a director decides to do. I have even heard some of them say, in interviews, that it's up to the viewer to decide a meaning that's acceptable to them and not worry about what the director had in mind. This, for me, is one of those movies. And, from the comments I read here, it's obvious that a lot of those making comments had a lot of different ideas about the "meaning" of what they saw.

My biggest "complaint" is about Nathalie Richard as Zoé, smoking like a steam engine, though I did think that one of the funniest scenes is when she put's on Maggie's mask while she has a mouth full of smoke.


Emperor: Tell me how he died.
Captain Algren: I will tell you...how he lived.