In the Mood

Finally got around to watching Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love (2001). Looked at as a melodrama, it's not my thing. But it is Wong Kar Wai.

It starts in 1960s Hong Kong with Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung separately renting rooms in adjacent apartments. They meet now and then in the hallway or in neighborly gatherings, but remain aloof. Both are somewhat lonely, with spouses who often travel or work late, leaving them alone. They each suspect that their spouse is cheating on them. 

One night they decide to share dinner, since they both are alone. They work out that their spouses are involved with each other. They react by play-acting as the spouses, trying to imagine how the affair started and how they act around each other. They seem to be attracted to each other, but swear that they will never act like them.

After many meetings, Leung decides to make a change in his life - to write a Chinese martial arts novel (he's a journalist, and his paper publishes it). Cheung joins in and they spend a glorious period collaborating. One day, they are reviewing the story together in Leung's room when the landlady starts a long mah-jong party in the living room. Now, Maggie can't get out of the room without being "caught". It's interesting to see Wong treating this absurd "I Love Lucy" farcical situation as high melodrama.

So Leung rents a hotel room as a studio where they can work together - Room 2047. This works for a while, but it begins to look like a temptation. Leung tells Cheung that he loves her and wants her to run away with him. Cheung has to tell Leung that she better not come to the room any more.

So Leung gets a job in Singapore. Cheung calls him and hangs up when he answers. Later, she goes back to visit her old landlady and rents the apartment where she lived next to Leung. Later still, Leung visits his old apartment, but his landlord has moved. He asks about the people next door and finds that they have moved. A single woman with a child lives there now. He doesn't realize that the woman is Cheung, and the child her son (by her (ex-?) huband?). He starts to knock on her door, hesitates, then walks away.

The last act is set in Angkor Wat. Leung, probably there as a journalist, takes in the old temple, then finds a hole in the wall, whispers to it for a moment, then plugs the hole with mud and grass. The End.

This is certainly a story of living with infidelity, lonbeliness, and unrealized love. Leung and Cheung are beautiful people, and Cheung in particular wears fabulous 1960s style cheongam gowns, always super-fashionable. The subtext is that although they are beautiful and deserve love, they are too timid and maybe convention-bound to take what they need. 

But it is also a Wong Kar Wai film - a film of surfaces, lights, volumes. He often films only the feet or torsos of the actors, or the backs of their heads. We never see the faces of the unfaithful spouses, for instance. The faces we do see are Cheung and Leung, sometimes in a two-shot that looks like a Roxy Music album cover. The spaces they occupy are always tight - we never see a vista or city-scape, just rooms, hallways, offices and one narrow street. I was amazed that this was shot mainly on locations, not small sets. 

So as a melodrama, it was interesting, if a little frustrating to see these beautiful people in a trap they made themselves. As pure abstract cinema, it was fascinating. But I must admit, I mainly watched because I want to see Wong Kar Wai's 2047, a sequel-in-spirit with some sci-fi elements. 

In conclusion, they never used the song "In the Mood for Love" in the soundtrack. But there is a lot of Nat King Cole singing in Spanish.