In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000): Hong Kong
Reviewed by Kevin Tran. Viewed on DVD.
In the Mood for Love – The title alone should prepare you for a delicately thoughtful and beautifully luscious film about two lovers, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Chung), who move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are polite and formal – until a discovery about their respective spouses sparks an intimate bond. It is a film that brought director Wong Kar Wai to the forefront of international cinema, as one of the most visual and interesting storytellers. In the Mood for Love is a masterpiece of stunning style and pace.
From the introduction of Maggie Cheung’s character, dressed in a slim fitting, floral dress, the art direction and costume, both done by William Chang, are the first thing anybody recognizes. The film only has a few major settings and so the set is packed with details from the light green wallpaper in Li-zhen’s room, to Mo-wan’s cluttered workplace, to the romantic sidewalk they walk on, where paint is falling off the wall. It is these subtle details that Wong Kar Wai focuses on, which is why his films are so uniquely different than everything else.
Cinematographer Chris Doyle, a Wong Kar Wai favorite, along with Mark Li Ping-bin, does an outstanding job creating a lush color palate of reds, golds, and greens. Used in almost every frame of the film, this color scheme creates beautiful images that compliment Chang’s art direction. Doyle’s composition is perfect, and his use of light and darkness on characters faces and background is exact.
In the Mood for Love may not have the most interesting of plots, but there is something much more cinematic about characters doings things that aren’t typically meant to be in films. There are short scenes where Mo-wan is just smoking in an alley way or another one where Li-zhen is waiting for her noodles to be made at a stand. The director literally slows things down. He fades to black between most scenes in the film to make things moments last forever. Wong Kar Wai makes the mundane both beautiful and interesting.
Not everyone’s Valentine’s Day is filled with outrageous plot twists and absurd humor (it is most likely you’ll just have another boring old night) but why not watch In the Mood for Love and be entranced by how alluring the uneventful can be.
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