In The Mood For Love

365 Films

Entry #88

In The Mood For Love (2000)

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai

I have another embarrassing admission to lead off this particular blog entry and that is that 2046 was the first time I came into contact with the writer/director Wong Kar-Wai.  It’s not too big of a gaffe on my part, however, considering his most productive creative period was at a time in my life when the local Delaware multiplexes were not exactly knocking each other down to stock up on the hottest Hong Kong imports.  2046 on the other hand, came out when I was of the right age to see it and as it turns out, it was a horrible method of introduction to Wong’s work.  At least that was the consensus amongst EVERY SINGLE PERSON I asked in regards to the fact that during most of 2046, I had no idea what the hell was going on.  Many years later, I finally came around to seeing what might be the perfect point of entry for this unique and indescribable talent, In The Mood For Love.  Actually, there’s a pretty solid argument in terms of Chungking Express holding that particular mantle but I’ll save that for another blog entry.  The point being that these two films represent two very distinct moments in Wong’s career when he managed to hit the sweet spot of universal accessibility without diluting his natural filmmaking gifts.  That might also be why those two titles are the only films of his available on the Criterion Collection.  Aside from Terrence Malick, there is no other working filmmaker today who tells stories as instinctually and without the need for any kind of scripted blue print as Wong Kar-Wai.  I find this fascinating because, in the case of In The Mood For Love, the visual style is so controlled and so precise, it’s astounding to read that the shooting dragged on interminably for fifteen months.  In that time they essentially shot two entirely different versions of the same story with the exact same cast.  The fact that the finished product is as evocative and soulful as it is remains a testament to Wong’s uncanny eye.  In telling the story of two tenant neighbors living in 1962 Hong Kong who become involved with one another as a result of their own spouses’ mutual infidelity, Wong has created one of the most unforgettable cinematic representations of memory ever committed to film.  The story is boiled down to its bare essentials and the dialogue only covers specific moment-to-moment exchanges and never gets bogged down in unnecessary exposition.  Even the structural plotting never wastes more than a beat in making drastic seasonal, environmental, and most importantly, emotive mood jumps as it progresses.  In re-watching the film I was struck by how frequently Wong uses identical camera set ups and angles through which to view scenes of varying emotional temperature.  A lot of the film appears to be dressed as a series of still photographs because there’s something incredibly distant about the cinematography. .  I hope you’ll understand that when I use the word distant, I don’t mean it as a pejorative.  That distance is a distinct kind of love that only exists in memory.  Even the transfixing slow motion sequences set to Shigeru Umebayashi’s “Yumeji’s Theme” convey a sense of reality slowing down to the point where we could be looking through a flip book of memories.  The shots are contained so tightly so as to focus on the most imperceptible hints of body language, the kind of communication that we really only notice, again, through memory.  Observe how Wong will frequently dismember the actors through the use of mirrors or other reflective surfaces.  We will catch an arm, a torso, or a head in a different location than the rest of the body.  Memory is like a puzzle that most of us have tremendous difficulty reassembling, let alone understanding.  There is so much more to unpack with this magnificent film that all I can do is implore you to stop reading and watch it right this second.

Editor’s Note: A To The Wonder/In The Mood For Love double feature should be imminent for any aspiring repertory programmers out there (of particular interest is how the two films convey bodies in confined, location specific interiors).