2046 (2004)

Directed by Wong Kar Wai, 2046 is the story of a writer, Chow (Tony Leung) living in Hong Kong in the 1960s. Or maybe it's the story of a man living in 2046. The film starts in 2046 on one of the "world trains" one that goes to 2046, where many people have gone to recapture old memories, but none have returned until now. It's not made clear now or at any other point in the film if 2046 really is the year the train is traveling in, if it might instead be a time travel kind of deal, or if 2046 is the signifier of a location, or perhaps even the train itself. After a while on the train, where Chow is the only passenger and the only other 'person' is the bartender / engineer and two very lifelike looking android waitresses.
Flashback to the mid-1960s and Chow is just arriving in Hong Kong. He gets work as a writer and tells everyone that he has moved there for a change of pace, but is really there looking for a woman - Lulu, who now goes by Mimi. He finds her and they go out drinking. He takes her back to her place - apartment 2046 in the Oriental Hotel - but she is passed out, so he does the gentlemanly thing, which is taking off her shoes and covering her with a blanket. When he comes to visit her next, he finds that she has been murdered. He wants to rent her room, but ends up taking the room across the hall 'until' 2046 is cleaned up and redecorated. By the time it's ready he decides to stay in 2047 and an attractive young woman who looks very similar to one of the android waitresses moves in. She's a prostitute by trade and she and Chow become drinking buddies, with benefits which he pays for if they have sex in her room, and she pays for if they have sex in his room.
After a while, for some reason Chow ends up doing stuff with the daughter of the Hotel manager, which looks an awful lot like the other android waitress and the bartender / engineer, respectively. Their relationship is purely platonic though. To amuse her, Chow begins writing a book that is supposed to be a cheap martial arts drama. At some point though, Chow changes the focuss of the book, but he doesn't finish it before the girl leaves to be with her love in Japan. Chow gets depressed, but finally finishes the book which turns out to be about a guy riding a train coming back from 2046 with two android waitresses whom he is cautioned about falling in love with, but does with the one that looks like the daughter, while the one who looks like the prostitute develops a crush on him. Chow doesn't just describe the story, the movie switches back to the imagery of the opening.
After a time, we go back to Hong Kong and it's several years later or several years before the first time we are there. Chow explains that he has been in Singapore where he had gambled away all of his money, but that a mysterious professional gambler who goes by the moniker of "Black Widow" because she always ears a black glove on her left hand, helps him out. Back in Hong Kong, he has looked for her and she may have been Lulu / Mimi, or she may have been someone she knew. He doesn't find her or what has happened to her.
Chow doesn't end up with the prostitute or the daughter, or the gambler.
I know this film won all kinds of awards and is supposed to be a masterpiece, but I guess Wong is just going over my head.
Is it a sci-fi psychodrama? Is it a film noir? Yes and no. It's both, but not mixed together. 2046 spends more time as a noir but never develops that aspect, but it is also a sci-fi film, but fails as that too as we never know if the two halves are actually linked, or if one is real and the other imagination.
The one thing that Wong does make clear is that nobody gets to be happy in the end. Things end badly for everyone.