Unrealized Love in a Lost City: Wong Kar-wei’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000)
Film Analysis in 10 Slides
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A Classic in the New Millennium
In the Mood for Love was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2000. Tony Leung won the best actor award there. Cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Mark Li Ping-bing, and production designer William Chang Suk-Ping won the Grand Prix de la Commission Supérieure Technique at Cannes 2000.
The film was ranked 24th in “The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012” which was the highest for a film after 1980 till 2012. It came 2nd in “BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century” compiled in 2016.
The film forms the second part of a loose trilogy along with Days of Being Wild (1990) and 2046 (2004).
Background
When Wong Kar-wai was five years old, the cultural revolution was in the air although it took some more years to actually arrive. His parents moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong which was under British rule. In the Mood for Love starts in 1962 perhaps a year before Wong arrived at Hong Kong.
The film portrays the Chinese Shanghainese community, recreating the 1960s. Wong has said that due to the housing problems prevailing at that time, families used to live under the same roof, sharing the kitchen and toilets, even their privacy.
In the Mood for Love was inspired by the 1972 novella, “Intersection” (Duidao in Chinese), written by Liu Yichang, a Shanghainese expatriate writer living in Hong Kong.
Synopsis
Journalist Chow Man-yuk (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk), wife of Chan and a secretary in a shipping company rent neighboring apartments in Hong Kong. Chow’s wife and Chan are either away on business or preoccupied with work at office. Chow and the captivating Su realize that their spouses are having an affair. Will Chow and Su fall in love too like their spouses?
It’s a brilliant idea to leave out Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan entirely except for showing their backs and playing their voices in the soundtrack occasionally. Showing their affair would have made it like many other films. Keeping them away from the film makes it somewhat mysterious and suspends judgement on them.
Structure
The film has several recurring motifs to show the recollected memory of the period. The repetitive images of clocks don’t seem to have a useful purpose but they evoke the feeling of lost time. The narrow halls, corridors and staircases give the sense of cramped space of that time. Chow and Su are mostly framed by doorways etc. This gives a feeling of being in that building and seeing them. There are several objects such as iron bars and curtains in the foreground that obstruct our view. Food is another recurring motif. Change of season is indicated by the food which changes based on the vegetable of that season. Yumeji’s theme is repeatedly played to give the melancholic mood.
Chow Man-yuk
In the Mood for Love revolves around Chow and Su but their conversations are kept to the minimum and they communicate more through their gestures and body language. Chow’s initial curiosity as to how Mr Chan and Mrs Chow would have come together leads at some point to welling up of feelings for Su. But they are not destined to unite as seen by later events in which there are missed opportunities. The last scene shows him whispering his secret into the hole in a wall in Angkor Wat. The stone temple lasting for centuries may hold a number of secrets. Tony Leung has the right earnestness and vulnerability to give an outstanding performance in the role of Chow.
Su Li-zhen
Su is elegant and immaculately clad in high neckline Cheongsams in different colors with printed flowers. Maggie Cheung befits the role of Su and gives an extraordinary performance.
Initially Su and Chow are engaged in play acting as their spouses. They order food that their spouses would like. The rehearsal she enacts with Chow for questioning her husband about his infidelity causes enormous pain to her.
Maggie Cheung brings out the ambiguity in Su very well. Su’s belief — that she and Chow won’t be like their spouses — crumbles when Chow confesses his love for her. She is too late to join Chow when he leaves for Singapore. Her visit to Singapore doesn’t even result in a meeting with him.
Cinematography
Many of the shots linger so that we can experience what the characters are going through. Slow motion is used to emphasize the space in which the characters move about.
There are some fascinating shots such as the staircase shot in which Chow and Su exchange glances and the one in office with cigarette smoke above Chow’s head. The film has a particular kind of tracking shot which connects Chow and Su in adjacent apartments, moving along the wall. Objects such as a gift, a cigarette etc. are shown in closeup to make them come alive. The film uses luminous colors that form a contrast to the drab surroundings.
Music
The English title of the film is from the song “I’m in the Mood for Love” by the English singer and songwriter Bryan Ferry. Wong Kar-wai uses music which he used to listen as a young boy. It seems Latin American music was popular in Hong Kong in the 60s. Three Spanish songs of Nat King Cole are on the sound track. The haunting “Yumeji’s Theme” by Shigeru Umebayashi was originally in Seijun Suzuki’s Japanese film Yumeji. It turned out to be the signature theme of In the Mood for Love recurring throughout the film, creating the feeling of lost time.
Closing Thoughts
In the Mood for love is imbued with a strong yearning for Hong Kong of the 1960s before the onset of the cultural revolution. The film ends in 1966 when the cultural revolution actually began. Many people migrated from Hong Kong. The ending year is clearly mentioned by showing the 1966 documentary of General de Gaulle’s visit to Cambodia. The film was made after the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Chow’s hotel room number is 2046, the last year Hong Kong will have its current political system. All this form an underlying political subtext in the film. While In the Mood for love makes a huge impact with its masterly visual narration of lost love, the film has an implicit longing for the lost city.
