In The Mood For Love

In the Mood for Love (aka Faa Yeung Nin Wa, 花樣年華, Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)

"It is a restless moment. She has kept her head lowered...to give him a chance to come closer. But he could not, for lack of courage. She turns and walks away."

They are ships that pass in the night...or the hall-way. Mrs. Chow (Maggie Cheung) and Mr. Chan (Tony Leung) rent rooms next door in the same Hong Kong building (circa 1962) and move in the same day, meeting when they exchange items mis-placed by the movers. She works as an assistant for a shipping company. He works as a journalist. Sometimes, the hours are long, but not so frequently that they can't spend time with their spouses.

But, they can't. Both spouses work more erratic schedules and are frequently away "on business." We never see them, only hear their voices in other rooms or over the phone. Mr. Chan's wife is only identified by her flip hair style and Mr. Chow (in the only time we see him from the back) has the same brylcreemed hair as Mr. Chan. But, they have a lot more in common than just off-schedules and domiciles. And for being neighbors, Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan share a lot, as well.

They spend a lot of time apart from their spouses, and given the cramped quarters of the hallways, they sometimes dance out of each others' ways. They frequently eat alone, and walk the streets at night to get food—Mrs. Chow with her noodle thermos and Mr. Chan eating at the alley-way cookery. Their land-people take note of the odd hours and their alonen-ess. They get invited to dinner, but they are appeciatively waved off. Mrs. Chow works for Mr. Ho, and must work with her boss' needs for scheduling and gifting his wife and his mistress. Sometimes, the gift is the same thing, even matching color.

Gifts are exchanged in the adjoining apartments, as well. New rice cookers, ties and hand-bags. But, familiarity breeds suspicion. After passing each other on a fairly regular basis, Mr. Chan makes the excuse of acquiring an imported hand-bag for his wife to ask Mrs. Chow out to dinner and the two compare notes—Mr. Chan is wearing the same imported tie that Mrs. Chow says her husband was gifted by (according to her husband) "his boss." And the two realize that their mutual spouses are probably having an affair. Small world, Hong Kong.

They walk back to their place, both in a bit of shock. He speculates who made the first move, and he's sure it was her husband, and he in turn wonders if they should pay them back in kind. Mrs. Chow briefly smiles, then turns dark refusing to stoop to their level. He then says it doesn't matter who made the first move—it's already happened. She turns on him: "Do you really know your wife?" And stalks off.

But, they meet again...discreetly, of course. It's Hong Kong in the 1960's and marriage is between a man and a woman, but anything else? It attracts talk. It attracts suspicion. And they've made a vow; they won't be like them. But, they have a bond, and they hurt, and so they discuss, share experiences and feelings and meals, trying to understand each other's situations. It's therapy, and they're doing nothing wrong. But still, no one must know.

They rehearse her confronting her husband about the affair, practice it, for when the time comes. She asks him what he'll do, and he thinks he'll do what he did before he had to be part of a couple—go see movies, he may even write that martial arts serial that he wants to do. She likes them, too—she's borrowed his collection; why doesn't she help him write? The idea seems absurd to her, but soon they are both writing, separately, comparing notes. But, then they have to write together and when they try at his place, she's trapped when the neighbors come home early and decide to play an all-night mahjong game.

That doesn't work. They can't work and the serial is getting attention (the kind they might want), so he rents a room away from their mutual place. But, the stigma if they're caught scares her and she resists going there. It is difficult to trust, at this point, and what if it becomes something more? But, one trepidatious visit and her fears are calmed. It's business and it's joyful and they both enjoy the writing.

They love it, in fact. And as he says, at one point, "these feelings creep up on you." They don't talk about love. They don't talk about their need. But, they feel it, and, at one point, he announces that his paper is short-staffed in Singapore—she's not going to leave her husband, anyway—why not take it?

Why not? Because it'll break their already broken hearts is why. But, they're already enured to that feeling, numb to it, even, and they can't carry on this way and it has to be curtailed. Doesn't make it any less painful, no matter how numb they are.

In the Mood for Love is tough stuff, while at the same time being one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Taking 15 months to shoot from the bare-bones outline of a script, it outlasted the availability of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose work here is mesmerizing (the film was completed by Lee Pin-Bing), along with the production/costume design and editing of William Chang, and the vivid eye of Wong, all done in eye-popping Technicolor in Hitchcock-psychology reds and greens. Because the story is told through image, some audiences might get lost—especially if they're depending on sub-titles to show the way—and the movie evokes a fragile, sensory-heightened time with its rich palette and it's frequent languid slowed motion effects that lull and stretch out the moments of joy or loneliness that evoke the numbed state of surviving alone-ness.

There is a visceral precision to it—like Cheung's elaborate 60's hair-do's and the taught perfection of wardrobe right down to the seams in her nylons—despite the wandering eye of Wong's camera or the disparate soundtrack of songs—that invoke deeply buried emotions that are repressed both in a society and in individuals, the need which goes unfulfilled by choice or duty, suffered in silence, but exquisite in its pain.

In the Name of Love keeps the emotions buried and only gives it full-flower in the vividness that burbles to the surface and enchants the eye. It is a platonic love story told in erotic hues, both beautiful and painful. 

It's one of "those" must-see films.