a typical breakup

a piece for the Gnossienne No 3 by Erik Satie

This short film is inspired by an imagined sequence from a Wong Kar Wai film, featuring a piece of music by Erik Satie. I assumed it was from a film made before he worked in the USA, as I could glimpse the nocturnal Hong Kong of Kar Wai in my memory. Anyway, it couldn't be a scene from My Blueberry Nights. Maybe In the mood for love or 2046 or Days of Being Wild… *

I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find Erik Satie in any of his films. I spent time listening to the soundtracks on repeat, especially the music by Shigeru Umebayashi. I seemed to sense something of Satie's melancholic chromatic harmonies in his themes, and that made me feel calmer. From the French-Japanese Satie–Umebayashi connection, I jumped to Hiroshima mon amour, the mythical French-Japanese coproduction written by Marguerite Duras and directed by Alain Resnais. What if my memory came from there? Well, not really. No trace of Satie in the musical credits.

As luck would have it, I came across this wonderful footage of Phong Croco at that time, and it felt almost inevitable and joyfully organic to create the sequence that had been in my head all along.

*Note for Wong Kar Wai fans:

Ten years after The Grandmaster, Wong Kar Wai returned in 2023 to complete the trilogy that began with In the Mood for Love and 2046 with Blossoms Shanghai, his first series. It premiered on a Chinese streaming platform and will soon be available to watch in the US and Europe. It will be available on Filmin (Spain) from 17 June.