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.

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.

For once, instead of merely empowering and yet paralysing us with the force of the longing, loss and pain felt by the characters, leaving us with but an open ending of empathy and hope, in ITMFL we are invited to feel the longing to such a degree that we complete the narrative’s gaps to bring the lovers together in our minds, in a move towards subjective film-making where the viewer is no longer mere passive recipient of auteur vision, but emotional participant in the realisation of the film’s completeness. It is no surprise that the few reviewers who weren’t enamoured by the movie (and, as ever, it won’t be to everyone’s taste), felt it to be somehow hollow, incomplete, or unfulfilled. The movie demands participation. It is not that the film has to be completed as such, but the power of the possibility of love fulfilled is somehow presented as more compelling than actual gratification, more engaging to empathy. Though both performances are powerhouse in accuracy and appropriateness (and Maggie’s is emotionally strong enough to hurt at times), the depictions, too, are given gaps and questions marking the tacit but inexorable invitation for the audience not just to think, or even feel, but to create. As previously mentioned, this is something of a departure for WKW, or rather a further development at any rate. Other WKW films invite the unconditional sharing in experiencing the depiction of a subjective consciousness - rich enough to pull the viewer out of the objective standpoint of the self (objective, that is, to the movie). Here, ITMFL invites not just the sharing of the experience by the viewer, but the emotional force of the viewer in completing the experience. Yet the viewer does this, again, without importing the self as a standpoint - one feels the film’s subjective consciousness without even realising that the viewer has been privy to ‘creating’ such consciousness. Eventual realisation that the keystone of the experience of the movie actually may lie in the viewer’s emotion comes as something of an epiphany.

The unique emotional participation given to the viewer is not without limits though. This being WKW, what would longing be without loss. In order for us to conclude the possibilities of the centre of the film, the end requires the protagonists to be in such a state for us to speculate on what could have or may have been. The end marks separation, not just of two persons from each other, but of two persons and a past, now behind a ‘window’ of memory, a secret sealed by whispering it into history, separation for entire peoples, too, from an era over, moving into the past (the allusion to the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the footage of Charles De Gaulle visiting his fading empire in Cambodia). This may also be a tacit hint at WKW’s view of film-making: he has been on record as saying that he treats every film as his last - perhaps he too is facing a new future and change - a new era in his art.

At times though, the extensions and retractions of narrative become such that, in any other director’s hands, the result would be unforgivable. WKW is famed (and notorious) for his experimental mannerism, but on first viewing ITMFL appears more restrained, more subtle. However, this hasn’t stopped several scenes developing into non-chronological, non-causal meta-narrative. Consider when Maggie visits Tony’s ‘outside’ room (room 2046, a reference to his next film) after being called by him. It is not even clear whether she has been there before, but the scene mixes footage of her storming upstairs to his room in haste with footage of her storming down in an apparent change of heart. The moment is suspended in expectation whilst we see Tony waiting in his room. Eventually the potentiality is resolved when we hear her knock on his door - yet, apart from being an exercise in manipulating viewer expectation, WKW gives no excuse for toying with the fabric of the narrative structure. This is unforgivable and practically unworkable for most film-makers, but WKW seems to give his storytelling technique such a literary bent that the move is workable, giving the tale just the right pitch of unreality. Subsequent scenes, however, do require some thought before they even make sense - and, despite the apparently laid back pace, the film leaves little ‘absorption time’ for viewers to grasp concepts; you even occasionally wish that the film was slower! Despite this, the film still ‘works’ even without close analysis and full understanding of the narrative - we can feel what the characters feel even if a moment is more a conceptual extension of narrative than ‘real’ fact. This also makes the movie incredibly rewarding on further viewing. For example, consider the confusing separation - the missed call to Maggie’s office, Tony’s voice-over (it’s actually a phone call, albeit unseen, so it’s the closest thing the film has to a voice-over), Tony leaving room 2046 at night, Maggie sitting there distraught at day, her identical unseen call. To piece this together in watertight fashion is an achievement which still eludes me - but the effect of the scene still persists. When we hear Tony’s question, we await a reply or response: this is delayed. We read both characters for a sign. Maggie’s eventual response (if it is a response) has the effect of finalising our expectation of the separation - albeit without resolving any ambiguities.

And so the narrative lurches to its extended epilogues. ‘Lurch’ is the right word, and the movie makes no excuse for the sudden changes - the purpose can be seen as to transpose the film’s themes into a different context, or for the sake of visual/textural contrast (so says WKW regarding the final Angkor Wat coda). Yet some viewers were disappointed, as many questions were left unanswered - narrative closure not being WKW’s priority. Even here, the film plays with our expectations of some hidden turnaround, some connection which we will to occur. We get Maggie sneaking into Tony’s Singapore apartment - it was only later that parallels to Faye Wong in Chungking sprang to mind for me, this scene being so different in tone and effect. Maggie appears to haunt his memory, leaving clues behind, crank-calling his office. In this call we see her stay silent, the receiver aside, then the receiver appears to moves to her mouth... and the shot cuts to her hanging up. The final Hong Kong sequence makes it appear as though both return to their old apartments near-simultaneously - yet Tony actually arrives some time later when Rebecca Pan’s Shanghainese landlady has already moved out and Maggie has moved in - and we are also made to question whether Maggie’s son is Tony’s, or where her husband has gone. But rather than indulge the audience’s curiosities, Tony walks on out of the scene, into the Angkor Wat coda to whisper his ‘secret’ and end the story.

Much has been said above regarding the structure of the film and the role of the viewer, but this would all mean nothing if the film didn’t ‘work’ anyway, if we didn’t care about the characters, empathise with them, feel the texture of their very existence and consciousness. On the subject of texture, the production is absolutely stunning. By the end of the film you can feel the very living space which is depicted, yet it is shot in such a way that the layout is never made absolutely clear. The sets are rich and dazzling to the eye, much care has been lavished over the details. Consider the opaque green cups and saucers used at the restaurant; identical to those at the cafe in DoBW. Even the mirrors in the film have been grimed up. Before watching this film I was already aware that Maggie’s role would be a cheongsam-fest, so I failed to pay real attention to this aspect. It is only on later viewings that I have appreciated, not just the aesthetics of the gloriously over-elegant costuming, but the fact that she changes clothes every scene (and apparently within scenes: often the editing manages to hide time transitions well - like the second restaurant sequence which occurs over two occasions, and the following shot in the taxi from another occasion!). The result is a subjective highlighting of her character, as if created from memory. Tony is highlighted too, his restrained clothing directing attention to his slicked hair and his carefully internalised expression.

Both performances are excellent, good news considering so much of the film hinges upon how the characters are depicted. Maggie gives an expressive, visibly pained performance, where she uses her entire self to express her emotions. Tony gives a subtle, controlled depiction, where even during his more introspective moments he keeps the bulk of his expression internal. For this reason his character invites analysis: into his pains, regrets and motivations. The film alludes to his role in driving the development of the situation; we see hints of him and his wife arguing (whereas we never see Maggie with her husband in anything less than amity), he tries to speak to Maggie first at the noodle stall, he waits some nights for her to pass, he plays on her interest in literature, he apparently is the driving force behind the roleplays they partake in. And when they are together he emphasises the licence which they have in light of their spouses’ affair (Tony’s soup-slurping depiction of Maggie’s husband being memorable), and he calls Maggie at work. Eventually, when it comes to separation he makes Maggie go through the painful process of a farewell roleplay.

On the other hand, perhaps such is the effect of Tony’s (Cannes Award-winning) depiction that one can’t help but read in to him. For her part, Maggie is far from simply compliant to Tony - she demands attention yet keeps hold of the mantra that they won’t be like the others - and it is her character who returns to haunt Tony’s memory at the end of the story, where we are shown the universal pain and regret felt by both, consigning any question on the creation of the affair into irrelevance. As Tony says, it doesn’t matter who started it - it has already occurred. What WKW seems to be creating is a premise which presents itself as the inevitable consequence of coincidence, narrative structuralism demanding the affair to occur - the caging of his characters within the bounds of some fate-tempting eventuality. Yet we learn of this to be merely the presentation: the centre of the story - as with all of WKW’s tales - is around a male character whose consciousness we are made privy to. This is emphasised by the ‘memory’ epigram. So we are invited to gauge just how his memory has ‘subjectified’ the narrative into inevitable consequence - when, by his memories, the only thing we can be sure of is a love had and lost.

The choice of music in the film is, as ever, inspired. The selection is quite minimalist, and there is no pure incidental music, meaning each tune has a full presence in its setting. Complementing the Umebayashi Shigeru theme are a collection of catchy Nat King Cole numbers which initially form a ‘restaurant’ theme where the leads meet alone. But WKW allows the themes to transpose from a fixed location to ‘float’ later in the film. This means that a ‘real’ prop-like object such as a restaurant tune has made the move into the ephemeral, into the realm of the memory as a node to recognition and emotion. The effect of this on the audience is comparable to the effect of the jukebox tune (‘Forget Him’) on Leon Lai in Fallen Angels - although there the song taints whatever Leon associates it with. Here, the songs are associated with the connection between the leads, and provide a rhythm to their actions and thoughts. Perhaps the only gripe is that the songs are so fitting that they lack the quirky, unexpected feel which songs have in some of WKW’s other works. 

In many ways, the cinematography - always so central in WKW films - also works to the musical rhythm. Often, the shooting style is restrained and balanced as the routine of living is emphasised: the same shots from the same angles of staircases, alleyways, windows. The use of balance finds the camera particularly giving space to walls and the set. So many shots feature half a screen of wall, whether directly before the camera or oblique into the distance - some of these have a ‘peekaboo’-style feel (complemented by the many prop-‘blocked’ shots), but the emphasis on the walls as witness/co-constituents in the story is especially important given the coda, with its balanced shot of Tony in ‘communion’ with a wall. What is remarkable is that this scene was only added on at a late stage, apparently without planning - and yet it ties in with the initial shot in the film (always important with WKW) of the camera tracking along Rebecca Pan’s apartment wall, taking in the ‘history’ as recorded in framed pictures and snapshots. It can only be hypothesised whether WKW already had the general theme of the coda in mind when shooting the rest of the film.

Then, occasionally, the cinematography breaks into movement and energy to emphasise a rhythm or a mood. For example, when Maggie enters Tony’s neighbouring apartment for the first time, the camera shoots from every conceivable angle, reflecting excitement and curiosity in contrast to routine. And when the Umebayashi Shigeru theme plays, the camera floats in gloriously slow tracking shots and pans, the slow motion giving the scene a suspended, memory-like unreality. As mentioned before, many shots are oblique: shot through props blocking the camera, and often the characters are seen in mirrors, the grime and distortion adding to the obliqueness but also creating artificial juxtapositions. There seems to be a purpose here, as the only time we truly see the leads let down their guards and, apparently, happy is when we see them get down to their joint venture of crafting a martial arts serial. This occurs in room 2046: ironic given that we expect that location to be where they get together for physical love rather than to write fiction. There the camera pans slowly as they smile and talk - dialogue inaudible - with their images reflected to us in grimy mirrors. The moment has an unreal feel - we take it secondhand, reflected and distorted and subjectified like seeing an experience through the lens of one’s memory. This is further expanded upon by shots of twirling smoke and gently rippling curtains, Tony telling Maggie, ‘This is not real’ when she feels the pain of reality. Both are caught on the cusp of this unreality, and perhaps it is only here where they can find happiness, in a realm where possibility is neither realised nor frustrated.

And, as mentioned before, the rhythm of the soundtrack complements the camera too. For example, one scene features a relentless downpour, which stops after what feels like an age, with the camera cutting to the ripples spreading in a puddle - whilst the viewer feels the echoes of the sudden quietness. This scene reflects the cafe shot after the rainstorm in DoBW, the sudden silence, unbroken by dialogue, leaving one’s attention with the image. Then there is the scene where Tony and Maggie sit back to back against the wall that separates them, the camera swinging from one apartment to the other, rhythm dictated by the song on the radio requested by Maggie’s husband, the two leads inches apart but repressed by the reminder of Maggie’s husband’s presence, even if he is hundreds of miles away. This scene practically reads like an essay on WKW’s recurrent themes - the passing of irrecoverable time in the characters lives (it’s her birthday), the issues of space - physical and emotional, and the stretched longing played out on this vista. Analysis aside, the cinematography of the film as a whole is beautiful and rich, but less dazzling than in previous WKW films.

So what does it all add up to? As can probably be guessed from this review, ITMFL is both a reviewer’s dream and nightmare. The richness invites analysis and provides footholds on which interpretations can rest, but so much is unsaid and ambiguous that one can’t claim to truly interpret this film. In this sense, WKW stays true to his old form. But his previous movies weren’t open due to ambiguity but because they didn’t have the feel of films which could be comprehensively analysed. Whilst feeling and mood are prominent in ITMFL, it demands an analysis which makes the audience’s participation more detached than with other WKW films - whilst a viewer can interpolate to flesh out the movie’s open areas, one can’t quite create the pizzazz which WKW infused into some of his other work and communicated to us. There is still absolutely no doubt when watched, that this film has been created by a master, but whereas he shot us to the Hyperion with his imaginative and quirky inventiveness before, here he tries to coax us into providing the energy - something which we can’t do to WKW’s level.

The reason why so many people like WKW is that he moves us yet he lifts us in a way which we could never have imagined. He is one of the few film-makers where we genuinely feel that he is two steps ahead of the audience’s expectations rather than vice versa. ITMFL does move, but perhaps ends up making us feel more helpless. WKW has always been called an optimist, but ITMFL doesn’t tally with this. Also, one feels when watching ITMFL that WKW may be listening to critics - always a dangerous move. As mentioned before, the radio request scene is a paradigm example of what many people see as WKW. Technically brilliant though it is, I found it less engaging than the ‘usual’ WKW tropes which always seem ad hoc, quirky and intuitive. The problem is that so many people (myself included) are inclined to explain WKW from what we know, yet we can’t know the creative process - so analysis as a spur to creativity is dangerous, especially for a director famed for his idiosyncratic inventiveness .

This criticism is a small one though. It must be appreciated that WKW’s work creates such anticipation that it is never possible to satisfy all. That ITMFL thwarted expectations is in keeping with WKW’s modus operandi. On a personal level, it has to be said that the loss of a sense of profoundly human fun irreverence - the absence of the type of playful conceits which made WKW’s work lyrical - slightly dampens the feeling of joyful/awestruck exhilaration which usually attends me when watching his films. But having said this, ITMFL definitely strikes into new ground, and impressively too. It is a cliche that people often say WKW’s films are a meditation on loss and desire, but here that is true and the result is awe-inspiring in its scope and execution. Even if the result lacks the exhilaration which WKW is famed for creating, the movie takes longing and possibility to a new level of emotive film-making, and shows that WKW’s profound expression exists beyond the confines of a style.