This is a journal written by Christopher Doyle during the months Happy Together was shot! Actually, it's the version released in Japan in September 1997. The original HK edition was released a few months earlier, titled "Don't try for me Argentina". According to a fanpage dedicated to Happy Together, the journal is the same, but most of the photographs are different. So both of them are essential! Unfortunately, I only own the Japanese version, which will be discussed here. [EDIT: I managed to get hold of the version released in HK, a review will follow.]
This journal is very different to the official photobook! Despite the fact that it's a journal, the photographs are more important to me. Here, we get raw snapshots that don't look as stylized as the collages presented in the official photobook. Most of the photos are grainy and blurred. Then again, this is also kind of a style, isn't it? At first, I wasn't so happy about these "simple" photographs, yet after a while, I came to admire the beautiful colors and also their muddiness.
This journal is very different to the official photobook! Despite the fact that it's a journal, the photographs are more important to me. Here, we get raw snapshots that don't look as stylized as the collages presented in the official photobook. Most of the photos are grainy and blurred. Then again, this is also kind of a style, isn't it? At first, I wasn't so happy about these "simple" photographs, yet after a while, I came to admire the beautiful colors and also their muddiness.
Mostly, the layout looks like on the two pictures on the right. The text is presented in both English and Japanese! It features some interesting and also funny anecdotes of the troubles the crew had to face in Argentina. But don't be dissappointed, there could have certainly been more information about shooting details! WKW geeks might not get enough information! Anyway, one thing becomes clear: WKW's movies really are created at the editing table! There are descriptions of scenes we know, but they were shot in a completely different context. Quote from the book: "Wong says that it's only as he edits the film that he finds the meaning of much of what we have shot. We didn't really know what certain details or colours or actions meant at the time. They anticipated where the film would take us. They were images from the future at that time that we've only just arrived at now." Without the voice-overs that are used so heavily in WKW's movies (which are added in post-production), some scenes might have a completely different meaning!
So all in all, this book is just as good as the official photobook, it's simply very different. The photographs are presented in a simpler way, which is just as good. They get the chance to speak for themselves, they're not just part of a work of art, they ARE THE work of art.
It bugs me that I can't compare this Japanese version to the one released in HK, maybe someday I will be able to! It would be so exciting to compare the photographs!
It bugs me that I can't compare this Japanese version to the one released in HK, maybe someday I will be able to! It would be so exciting to compare the photographs!
