"All memories are traces of tears".
For those that have seen the film, they may remember a title appearing with the words "All memories are traces of tears".
I'd just like to ask those that have seen the film, or those that are reading this saying for the first time:
How did you interpret this title/saying, and what does it mean to you?
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i think its somthing about we all long for the past, whether its youth, or love or somtihng else.
share[deleted]
I think it's a really broad generalization: that all memories rest in the root of sadness. That memories are traces of tears means to say that the things we remember are those things that have made us cry.
"Death, you are my bitch lover!"
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Yeah, I like that better. Dig your name by the way, I'll have to watch Once Upon a Time in the West in the next couple of days now.
"Death, you are my bitch lover!"
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Even if I'm not that old (now I'm 30), I used to say something like what that phrase 'implies' when I was younger (up to 10 years ago):
"I don't like remembering, I even avoid it, also when the memories are happy ones... for every happy memory there's at least a sad one".
Regardless of that film, I haven't changed that much my way of thinking.
I have felt love, so when I see "Happy Together" or "2046" I feel empathy or at least I understand without a big try. But some friends (for instance priests) see those films in a rather objective manner.
Quite the same with a phrase like the one of this topic, the more memories we have, the more subjective we are to read it.
Pain makes the deepest impression.
For me the phrase meant that remembering the past bring up sadness, even if the memory is a happy one. I fthe memory is sad, then one is sad about the event being remembered. If one is happy, then one is often sad that the present is not as good as the past was.
share[deleted]
I think this quote came from a person with a very sad outlook on life. You shouldn't focus on things that make you sad. Your memories shouldn't make you sad. forgive yourself. Focus on things that make you happy and you will be happy.
It means that the things you remember are the things that had the deepest value/feeling/sadness over the loss of that particular moment. That's why you remember it.
shareI think of it as memory as a sense of loss, which is a theme in some of Wong Kar Wai's other films (for instance, the two cops' memories of their ex-girlfriends in Chungking Express).
shareI think that memories, like tears, are associated with emotion, whether good or bad.
Remember, people do not only cry when they are sad, but when they are happy.
I wander if the english translation is completely accurate though. Sometimes, when translating a phrase, you lose the essence of it. Well in any case, i think 2046 is a lovely movie.
"You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like best"
Actually, the translation is wrong. The original says: 所有的記憶是潮濕的;. "All memories are wet."
shareI would say "wet" is not the best translation. The literal translation would be "All memories are damp".
"Damp" in Cantonese in this usage has some subtleties that are worth noting. It means very high humidity with water condensing out, not wet because it is dunked in water. It also conveys a meaning of sogginess.
The director may want to say memories are never crisp, but soggy. He may want to imply that feelings seeps out from memories. Just my guesses.
It is a phrase that keeps me thinking.
thanks for your insight. it's wonderful!
i think i did associated ,like many , the tears with a negative emotion, hence the phrase was puzzling (... since i guess it's rarer to experience the tears of happiness)
2046 explores the recursive nature of Chow’s dysfunction so that the substitution of these traumas lead Chow to his pathological narcissism.
"before...
when people had secrets they didn't want to share
they'd climb a mountain
they'd find a tree and carve a hole in it
and whisper the secret into the hole
then cover it over with mud
that way
nobody else would ever discover it
i once fell in love with someone
after a while
she wasn't there
i went to ....
i thought she might be waiting for me there
but I couldn't find her
i can't stop wondering if she loved me or not
but I never found out
maybe her answer was like a secret
that no one else would ever know"
WKW
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