Intimates

Intimates walks the line of whether it’s explicitly queer. There’s a lot more forehead kisses here than kisses on the lips. But I’m an absolute sucker for forehead kisses so I’m not particularly bothered.

Intimates takes place in two time periods. The framing is modern day. A woman named Wai is responsible for escorting her aged aunt, Wan through her travels. Wai is very in love with her boyfriend though he wishes to end their relationship and marry someone else. Most of the film however, is a flashback to Wan’s youth. The flashback takes place in the 1940’s and primarily focuses on Wan’s growing relationship with a woman named Foon. Intense and tender, Wan and Foon’s relationship is primarily that of very intense friends. Their relationship turns romantic soon before a Japanese attack separates them for what will end up being decades. Wan’s motivation for travelling is revealed to be her decades-long search of her love, Foon.

Wan and Foon’s relationship spends most of the time being specifically not romantic. About halfway through the film, Wan does kiss Foon only for Foon to express how she didn’t think women were capable of being like that with each other. It’s not really brought up again for a while and in the meantime, Foon carries on an affair with a man. Through all of this though, Wan is there and the two women lean on each other. While the romance might not be made explicit until one of the last scenes they share together, this is still one hell of a tender and epic romance.

The problem with me writing this review is the only word in my head after watching it was TENDER in all caps. The juxtaposition of Foon and Wan’s relationship against their often difficult life is what really stayed with me. There are so many small moments of absolutely aching tenderness between Foon and Wan. And I celebrate this film for choosing to focus on these small, lingering moments of intimacy in a very epic story.

The scenes set in the present day are definitely the weaker part of the film. Wai’s obsession with her boyfriend is not nearly so interesting to me as a slow burn queer relationship set in the 1940’s. The comparison also shows Wai in a bad light. She’s got it pretty easy in both life and romance when compared to the flashback scenes. On the plus side, this is a two-way street. Yeah, the present day scenes seem worse by comparison but they do make the flashback scenes feel more epic, poignant and dramatic by comparison.

I don’t have much to say about Intimates. It’s just a good movie with a really tender yet intense core relationship and some unnecessary focus on a heterosexual present day subplot. Intimates is a solid, Hong Kong epic with good visuals, well-drawn female characters and a good yet subtle female romance.

Overall rating: 7.8/10

Other WLW films in similar genres