Conducted every 10 years, the Sight & Sound Best Movies of All Time poll is voted on by film critics, writers, professors and other experts in the field of cinema. Although the primary list consists of 100 movies, the poll actually includes a total of 200 films. The Cosford Cinema will be showcasing ten selections from the second half of the list every Sunday over the fall from Sept. 10-Dec. 3.

HAPPY TOGETHER | 1997 | WRITER-DIRECTOR: Wong Kar Wai | WITH: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Chang Chen | RUNNING TIME: 1H 36M | UNRATED Sexual situations, brief nudity, vulgar language, adult themes | In Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish with English subtitles | 4K DCP projection

One of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again.

Setting out to depict the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong—when the country’s LGBTQ community suddenly faced an uncertain future—Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that is by turns devastating and deliriously romantic.

"A fractured love story, 'Happy Together' centers on the highly sexual, highly agonized relationship between two Hong Kong travelers to Argentina: the enticing, abusive Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and his lover, the sober, essentially good-hearted Yiu-Fai, played by Tony Leung in the first of his world-class dramatic performances for Wong.

"This tango-lashed triumph quickly, and reductively, became known as WKW’s “gay film,” and 'Happy Together' was daring for many Asian viewers—it was groundbreaking to see two male superstars in a sex scene together. But its theme of dangerous love was nothing new for Wong.

"Cinematographer Christopher Doyle may have done his finest work in the film’s high-contrast look, with its spiky, Nan Goldin–inflected interiors, luridly lovely Argentine boulevards, and rapturously overwhelming shots of Iguazú Falls. Thematically, Wong uses Yiu-Fai’s tortured relationship with Po-Wing to make oblique commentaries on loss and recovery, cultural identity, the Chinese diaspora, and the looming issue of Hong Kong’s handover to China, which took place six weeks after 'Happy Together' premiered at Cannes (where it won Wong best director). It posed a tacit question that resounds to this day: Can Hong Kong and the mainland truly be happy together?" -- John Powers

Tickets are $5 and available at link above. UM students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout (Cane Card must be presented at the door).