In The Mood For Love
Written by Rai, editor for The Literature Garden.
“In the old days, if someone had a secret they didn't want to share... you know what they did?..”
“Have no idea.”
“They went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it, and whispered the secret into the hole. Then they covered it with mud. And leave the secret there forever.”
There are some lines, some words, some visuals that stay with you forever. If I were to be completely honest, I cannot call myself a film buff.
But whenever, somebody would ask me for a media recommendation, I always go back to visualising the old Hong Kong neighbourhood from In the Mood For Love (2000) by Wong Kar Wai,starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung, beautifully captured by ChristopherDoyle alongside with Mark Lee Ping-bin and Kwan Pung-leung.
This is a visual story of two neighbours who bond over the suspicion of their partners’ supposed extra-marital affair. The plot follows Mr. Chow(Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan(Maggie Cheung) trying to navigate their partners’ desire towards an affair. They try to imitate words and actions that their partners might have said and done but with one promise in mind:they wouldn’t turn out to be like them.
This binding promise carries out the rest of the film, a promise that cannot be stirred. They try to adjust around it, they try to ignore the gossip going around but all of it comes down to a quiet restraint persisting in their mind, an unsaid limit.
The secrecy follows them through the quiet streets of Hong Kong, through the lonely stairs which leads them down to a dingy-little noodle shop, through the room where she would help him write, through very quiet taxi rides and through restrained touches.
It raises some beautiful questions that you’d want to ponder upon through the entire night.
One really has to sit through the entire film to have a quite pleasing answer and trust me, it would be the best decision of your life.
While watching the film, my mind would always go back to the secrecy involved thoroughly. Wong Kar Wai wanted to capture the essence of 1960s Hong Kong where he had grown up just at the edge of revolution and immigration. He truly wanted to reimagine the nosy neighbours and their banters. What amazed me was, while the plot was revolving around an affair, it captured the beauty of a secret. Wong Kar Wai didn’t want a mundane, boring film of affairs but of a restrained, unrequited secret: a secret that lives even six feet under.
Supposedly the film didn’t have a script, it was all improvised by the actors when they would sit with the director who’d explain the scene. The raw magnetism and the brutal truth underlying bound the scenes together to be a cultural masterpiece.
I think what drew me more into the film was the setting(mis-en-scène) . A 1960s film made to be in the big year of 2000 was quite outstanding for me. Mr Chan’s gelled-up hair, a cigarette quietly sitting between his lips, and the mundane chaos that goes around him, while Mrs Chan’s cheongsam/qipao with the big hairdo and the worry about scandals, really binds together the whole experience. Now if I had to come to appearances, I cannot help but notice how the filmmaker didn’t feel the necessity to show the faces of their spouses, as though it didn’t really matter; well it didn’t. Wong Kar Wai has said in an interview that it didn’t matter because again, this wasn’t a film about affairs. Again, I cannot help but notice how the voices and appearances(especially hair) depicted the antagony of the spouses.
If we recall Mr. Chow thanking Mr. Chan and how his voice was indifferent, we can feel the underlying guilt. Same goes for Mrs Chow who didn’t invite Mrs. Chan in. It all again adds up to a very consequential guilt.
The play of the lights make a very big impact on these scenes as well.
Again as the movie was primarily based on secrecy and how the world views such affairs at that period, the visuals are captured in frame-in-frame manner. So, as a spectator, I think of myself as a third eye of how things are unfolding. For an instance, we see Mrs. Chan sipping her tea on her window sill, through a third person point of view. I think this kind of cinematography really puts you in perspective as a spectator.
I just want to take a moment and talk about their almost confession. Though they were imitating, you can see how it actually became about them.
“I didn’t think you would fall in love with me.”
“Me neither.”
And she cried out loudly, maybe for the first time, just after this adds to the effect of longing and restrained feelings towards each other.
Another thing which baffled me was the use of stairs as a meaningful prop by the filmmaker. Though he has largely talked about this and how he got the inspiration from a Japanese novel, I would still like to shine the light on how their relationship evolved with their interactions on the said stairs; stolen glances, polite smiles. I would still like to think that the stairs actually spoke for their relationship which they couldn’t.
Now if we talk about missed opportunities, I think that added certain realism to the plot. Even though separated from their respective spouses, they couldn’t just find their way back to each other. The timeline differed, but they still came back to the same apartment in the hopes for one last glance, or maybe a chance.
The ending with him carving a hole to whisper his secret at the Angkor Wat was something which beautifully tied up the entire story with a sort of open-end.
I think this article wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t talk about music. Yumeji’s theme for In the mood for love, paired with the slowing of their actions and their glances is what captured me the most. Nat King Cole with his Jazz, traditional Cantonese music and Yumeji’s theme captivated the audience with the timeline.
I don’t think I have done even ten-percent justice to the film which has me in chokehold. This is a film you need to watch again and again just to remotely understand what this could be about.
Siempre que te pregunto
Qué, cuándo, cómo y dónde
Tú siempre me respondes
Quizás, quizás, quizás
(You won't admit you love me, and so
How am I ever to know?
You always tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps)
