Romancefest 2014: In the Mood for Love

Now, back to Hong Kong for another Wong Kar-wai film, 2000’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. After watching CHUNGKING EXPRESS earlier this month, I was immediately excited to check this one out as soon as I saw the director’s name.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE does not disappoint. It is as beautiful, and in some ways more beautiful, than CHUNGKING EXPRESS and examines some of the same themes, most notably, loneliness.

It stars Tony Leung, also from CHUNGKING EXPRESS, as a journalist who rarely gets to see his own wife, who is usually away on business. He lives in an apartment building right next door to a secretary (Maggie Cheung) who also rarely sees her husband, who is also often away on business.

Both Leung and Cheung are shown to be characters of sweet disposition via their interactions with their employers, their co-workers, their off-screen spouses, and their landlady (Rebecca Pan).

This makes it even more heart breaking when we learn that they’re each being cheated on. It isn’t long before Leung and Cheung realize their spouses are cheating on them with each other.

Here, they embark on their own relationship. They identify with each other, for obvious reasons, and begin to feel for each other, but it’s a delicate situation. After all, their crowded apartment building has many eyes and ears always watching, and at this time and in this place, it would look suspect for a grown married woman and grown married man to form even a platonic friendship.

So, even though the two are drawn to each other, and begin to fall in love with each other, they never so much as kiss. They do spend a lot of time “practicing” scenes with their own spouses – scenes of confrontation, etc. They also spend time writing kung fu stories together, and even take a hotel room so they can work and hang out without anyone suspecting anything.

But ultimately the movie is about how they can’t or won’t do anything about their situation. It’s kind of like BRIGHT STAR, in that sense – both movies are about couples who can’t or won’t consummate, based on their societies and their positions within their societies. Ironically, though BRIGHT STAR was literally about a poet, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is the more poetic movie, in cinematic terms, with beautifully memorable shots and compositions.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE has a bittersweet, nostalgic ending, and some times those are the most romantic of all. You really feel like you got to spend some time with these characters, and you really feel their sense of loss and longing. There’s a reason why this movie tops so many “best of” lists.