Remembrance of things past.

Attention you lucky people: it's no longer necessary to own an import DVD to see Wong Kar Wai's delirious quasi-sequel to In the Mood for Love. That's right kiddies, 2046 starts its theatrical rollout this weekend. My love for the film is well documented.

The Whine Colored Sea's favorite rebel critic digs it too:

It's predicated on academic theory about the male gaze, but outside of Ingmar Bergman and Robert Altman's female studies—and Hustle and Flow—I can't think of another movie that so thoroughly challenges such theory. Ziyi, Li, Lau, Wong and a brief appearance by Maggie Cheung achieve a sensuality that is emphatically not inscrutable. 2046's love scenes convey a chivalrous, androgynous empathy. (After sex, Chow gallantly covers a lover's bare behind—a motif from The Conformist.)

On one level, 2046 could be called the greatest date movie of all time. But that would be superficial, reading its alluring surfaces as no more than Chinoiserie. Though Wong and cinematographer Chris Doyle delight in design, that's still half the experience Wong intends. 2046 confirms Wong's fascination with modern Western tropes—it's an esthetic romance.

Don't you dare miss it.