In The Mood For Love Review

Review and analysis of In The Mood For Love

The latest feature (at the time of writing) of Hong Kong’s premier auteur, Wong Kar Wai, is both a departure for him, as well as a revisit of some of his favourite themes and concepts. It is fitting in some way that change is one of WKW’s favourite themes, as this movie marks a shift in both his technique and delivery - the effect too is different, although it is undeniably as profound as ever.

The movie tells the relatively simple story (perhaps more of a concept) of two people, and the development of an (apparently) illicit relationship between them. What is fascinating is that this story only provides the basis, the platform, for an exploration, an experience - this ranges from the sumptuously sensory experience of evoking a past era (almost as if heightened by memory), exploration (and interpolation) of the emotions of the characters, stretched by longing and inner torment, and the unique connection between film and viewer: what is known and what isn’t, how something is felt and perceived. Whilst no stranger to these ideas, WKW has made moves to change his traditional approach, to lose some of his ‘trademarks’, and to strike into new territory.

The most apparent change is an absence: the distinctive use of voice-overs to provide direct, pithy emotional/conceptual access to characters, a feature of many WKW films, has been abandoned here. The reason is obvious. As WKW has himself acknowledged, many people were ‘doing’ his style - using some of the same techniques (although not usually to the same overall effect or purpose). Although the voice-over is a relatively simple technique, its overall effect on how a film is received and felt is profound if used well. This is not the only technical difference which attends In The Mood For Love: pacing appears closer to his second movie, the critically acclaimed (but commercially disastrous) Days of Being Wild - another movie set in the 1960’s, which actually shares some of the same cast and characters (in name at least). In fact, the very core of the films of WKW - the team of him, close friend, editor and production designer William Chang, and cinematographer Chris Doyle - which has operated since DoBW (a fact acknowledged by WKW when he says his films are team efforts), has seen some changes too, what with Chris Doyle and his distinctive cinematography being absent from most of the film. As a result, photography is more restrained and fixed - somehow managing to better reflect the feel that WKW appears to be evoking.

And those accustomed to the apparently freeform, intertwining, stop-go, pin-wheeling narrative structure which attends much of WKW’s work will be surprised by the apparent linearity of much of this film. Unlike, say, Ashes Of Time, ITMFL doesn’t immediately attract consternation in terms of narrative confusion: WKW deliberately underlines this with some exceptionally linear developments, for example where Tony Leung’s wife calls him to say she has to work late - and the very next scene he is at her workplace discovering this to be untrue. This, however, should not be taken for granted - sure enough, by the centre of the film we are into familiar WKW territory - the cinema of possibility: the narrative blurs and, although not complex, it becomes questionable how much we, the audience, actually know - how much is objective factual narrative, and how much is fantasy, imagination, suggestion, possibility or pure mind-funk.

By word of mouth: quite what is happening in the film can seem simple at first, but then you can begin to doubt the reliability of narrative altogether. How far does the affair go? When does it develop? Quite often we are made to read into images - without knowing which side of reality (or even how far on to each side) they stand. Part of the reason is WKW’s conscious move to change his delivery: there are (practically) no voiceovers or time games (at least not immediately noticeable ones). Also largely missing are the trademark hyper-kinetic visuals: WKW has made moves to reinvent his style, whilst still exploring the themes which have fascinated him throughout his career. The result is a far more subtle delivery

Anyway, to the actual story. More a concept, or premise, the central scenario has Mrs Chan (played by Maggie Cheung) and Mr Chow (played by Tony Leung) moving practically simultaneously into dingy adjacent flatshares in Hong Kong, 1962. Now to say that a relationship forming between them would be a cliche is some understatement, but that it will is very much a clear probability from the beginning of this film. The film doesn’t make any attempt to hide this. Films don’t exist in vacuums, and the publicity made the premise extremely obvious anyhow (there are only two leads after all). Added to this, we never see the faces of their respective spouses (a fact which was also no secret), which further concentrates us on the two central characters, driven together in our eyes like caged animals. Once again, but in a subtly different manner from usual, WKW constructs the ultra-subjective point of view which characterises many of his movies. Consider, for example, Tony Leung’s lyrical memories of his air-hostess girlfriend in Chungking Express - subjective to his character and so leaving little room for objective viewer evaluation. In ITMFL, we are invited to expel the depiction (and consequent evaluation) of the respective spouses from our minds, except insofar as they are depicted in the two leads themselves (and the bare fact explicitly given to us that the unseen spouses are carrying on an affair of their own). And so we are given an artificial construct whereby the two leads are highlighted, literally above all others (whereas the spouses are ‘in shadow’), making their relationship more inevitable. Are we invited to see the two leads as sharing such a consciousness with us? It is hard to say. We no longer have direct access to their thoughts. But there is a hint when Maggie says, ‘We won’t be like them’, that there is the direct dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (the unseen spouses for the viewer, as well as the oft-seen supporting characters for whom sexual licence is heavily hinted at) which our experience echoes.

Discovering their spouses to be having an affair, the two leads engage in roleplay (on how to confront their spouses, allowing us to see a depiction of the relative spouse in the other actor). Later on, Maggie helps Tony write martial arts serials for his newspaper job, pretty soon he rents an outside room of his own, and then the narrative blurs and jolts, suggests and retracts. It is common knowledge that a love scene was filmed (an embrace not in the film features on the HK release poster/cover), but this was cut from the final edit (WKW often films entire plots which he decides not to use), and so sex between them is never a clear fact in the story. Suggestions abound (holding hands in a taxi, surreal scenes to the Umebayashi Shigeru theme featuring the leads doll-like, bathed in yellow/green neon and moving in slow motion at Tony’s apartment), but what WKW appears to be toying with is the power of near-irrefutable suggestion compared to the certainties of narrative fact as seen and believed on screen. That what is seen can be less than objective, and perhaps only a mere node of what we understand to be happening allows us to be invited to interpolate - not just to extrapolate from what is explicit and objective, but to interpolate to fill the deliberate narrative and emotional blind-spots with our own feelings and emotions.