Film
In the Mood for Love
- Director
- Wong Kar-Wai
- Certificate
- PG
- Running Time
- 98 mins
Depending on which side of the style/content divide you inhabit, Wong Kar-Wai is either one of the world’s greatest directors or the creator of some rather dull films filled with very pretty images, not unlike an animated fashion magazine photo shoot. With 2000’s In the Mood for Love, he finally went some way towards bridging the gap.
This is the story of an affair. But there’s no furious shagging, big emotional showdowns or boiled pets here. That’s partly because the film focuses entirely on the delicate, sensual relationship between the cuckolded couple, but mainly because they inhabit a world where propriety is all. Fans of the stiff-upper-lippery of Brief Encounter or Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair should feel quite at home. It’s a period piece set in crowded early ‘60s Hong Kong. Journalist Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and his wife rent a room in a decaying backstreet apartment. Next door lives statuesque Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), whose husband is frequently away on business. During the film’s slow opening, they enjoy a polite, formal friendship, each unable to acknowledge what we have guessed from the outset: their mostly absent spouses are having an affair. Once they’ve crossed this particular rubicon, their relationship acquires a new intimacy which stops short of the expected sexual dimension. Instead, they set out to act out their partners’ behaviour and their own responses in a series of ambiguous, emotionally charged liaisons, their motto being: “We are not like them.” Students of romantic literary fiction will not need reminding, however, that such trysts, chaste or otherwise, are necessarily short-lived and certain to end in tears.
The characteristic perfume ad visuals of Wong Kar-Wai’s earlier films remain intact. It’s always raining outside and everybody smokes, largely, one suspects, because he enjoys lighting these scenes so much. But only occasionally does this work against the drama: the couple remain improbably stylish even as they’re put through the emotional wringer, and Li-zhen manages to spend an entire night innocently trapped in Chow’s room only to emerge looking impeccably glamorous the following morning. But this is a subtly nuanced if slightly old-fashioned drama, benefitting from rich, convincing performances by its two outstanding leads. For once, the gushing praise is justified.
is needed now More than ever
It’s back on screen in restored 4K form as part of Cinema Rediscovered and the Watershed’s The World of Wong Kar-Wai season.
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