It's hard to describe it if you haven't watched enough of Wong's films, but it suffice for now to say that his movies are like sophisticated dreams that invoke a sense of deja vu. Dreams that have a touch of demure glamour to it, thanks to Christopher Doyle's unmatchable cinematography. There are also the stylistics; slow motion, whirling, tendril-like smoke dancing against the light, tracking camera, lush and voluptuous colours, haunting music, motiffs that appear in cycles to entice and capture you. But more importantly, Wong's distinctive themes of memories, regret, chance remain consistent throughout his films and evoke in one deep nostalgia of a time past, be it the one in the story world or in one's own memory. It's almost he is able to reach inside of your mind and represent those emotions that are most delicate and inexpressible. That is why his films are true art.
The stunning cheongsams wore by Lizhen are achingly beautiful. Unknowing, the array of cheongsams are the only marker of time in the story, given that almost the whole film revolves around the 2 characters and the narrow spaces around them. What is not said speaks louder than the actual words exchanged. The repressed behaviour and emotions of Lizhen and Chow are as much a result as social decorum and respectability as Lizhen's unwillingness to be like their spouses, who have gotten into an extramarital affair. The irony is that Lizhen and Chow were slowly falling in love too, but Wong refuses for them to consummate their love and therein the beauty of it all.
The thing about Wong's movies is that you can easily be infatuated with the first film that you see, because of the novelty of it. It's a beautiful piece of literature that you can ruminate upon even as the credits roll. Almost like eye candy, what you see and feel can entrap you unknowingly. Slowly, you fall in love with Wong's dream, a mesh of unspoken emotions, memories, raw longings and misty sight. The heuristics are not always logical, but in any case, a beautiful raphsody that's haunting. The story carries over themes and characters and motivations from other stories that he has made and the more you know about the other characters (by watching more of his films) the more revelations hit you, deeper and deeper. The parallels between the characters and films will not hit you the first time; only if you give yourself space and time to connect the dots.
warning: spoilers ahead for 2046
Its "sequel" 2046 will carry over the central character Chow to his life after parting with Su Lizhen. 2046 is however less focused, almost a compilation of Wong's films to date; one cannot fully appreciate it unless having watched Wong's earlier works. But even if one eventually learns to appreciate the parallels and metaphors, In the Mood For Love is a film hard to trump, even by Wong himself, armed with a formidable cast. One gets the feeling that all that is to be said seem to have been said in In the Mood for Love anyways.
Personally, I found it hard to get through 2046 without watching In the Mood for Love. It was only in lieu of the latter that i found the motivation for Chow's promiscuity and ironically, saw past that promiscuity to see the real point of the movie. As if exacting revenge on a passive and prim-and-proper him in the past with Lizhen, Chow turns 180degrees to become a womanizer and heartbreaker but he is unable to love, unable to commit, unable to lend his heart to Bai Ling for even a while. More women enter his life, but everyone of them is a reference to a different figment of Lizhen (Maggie). He has flings with each of them, as if to undo the moral restraint that has held them back in 1963, but one discovers that despite the breakdown in his moral restraint, his emotions remain habitually constrained. He was stuck in his memory, that regret of lost love and nostalgia for a time past. Chow's inner motivations never change; he was perpetually stuck in the inertia of 1963 even as the world and the women around him changed.
Faye, who plays his landlord's daugher cum android in 2046 approximated closest to being Lizhen's substitute, being Chow's partner in writing of swordfighting stories, just as Lizhen had. But she was the only one who had a purely platonic relationship with Chow, because she was already in love with a Japanese (Takuya Kimura). Her delayed response to Takuya's "Do you love me?" was an emblem of the too-early-too-late motiff in Wong's films. A single tear drops, silence drags on, and Takuya says "Sayonara". Why did she hesitate? Did she really love him? He has no answer and hence travels to year 2046 to find the answer, because it is the place where nothing ever changes. Halfway through the 2046 story, Chow takes over the persona of the time traveller, as he seeks the answer to why Lizhen did not leave with him in 1963. Did she love him? Or was it because they met too late and she was already in love with her husband, who's always at "Japan" for business trips? In the end, Faye leaves for Japan to marry Takuya, just as how Lizhen chooses her husband over him. Faye and her Japanese lover was an eerie parallel to Lizhen and her unfaithful spouse.
The furistic part of 2046 with Faye and Liu Jia Ling as androids and Takuya Kimura as a time traveller is likely to drive you crazy if you don't understand their metaphoric existence and motivations. It was again, about regret, memory, restraint, repressed love that was never expressed in time. of being simultaneously too early, too late. I wonder however, if Wong had stretched 2046 too far. There is potential in expanding 2046 into an epic if more thought can be put into the furistic part of 2046 instead of the 60s affair with Bai Ling. Or, cut out the 60s part together and expand the time travel concept. One suspects it's because the camera and Wong loves Zhang Ziyi a little too much and wouldn't let her go.
In all, watch In the Mood for Love, and only 2046 if you're a Takuya Kimura fan. (But you will surely be disappointed with the 20 minute screen time that he has.)
Trivia: apparently, 2046 saw the falling out of Wong Kar Wei with his long time cinematographer Christopher Doyle (pity! he's a genius) and with Takuya Kimura. Due to the 5 year shooting and Wong's quirky working style of never having a script and developing the characters onsite drove some members of his crew crazy, enough is enough. Which reminds me how crew members of Greed quit their jobs too because they were convinced that the director was going to kill everybody by shooting unrelentlessly in the middle of Sahara desert.
"At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time."
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.
That era has passed.
Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.
He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.
warning: spoilers ahead for 2046
Personally, I found it hard to get through 2046 without watching In the Mood for Love. It was only in lieu of the latter that i found the motivation for Chow's promiscuity and ironically, saw past that promiscuity to see the real point of the movie. As if exacting revenge on a passive and prim-and-proper him in the past with Lizhen, Chow turns 180degrees to become a womanizer and heartbreaker but he is unable to love, unable to commit, unable to lend his heart to Bai Ling for even a while. More women enter his life, but everyone of them is a reference to a different figment of Lizhen (Maggie). He has flings with each of them, as if to undo the moral restraint that has held them back in 1963, but one discovers that despite the breakdown in his moral restraint, his emotions remain habitually constrained. He was stuck in his memory, that regret of lost love and nostalgia for a time past. Chow's inner motivations never change; he was perpetually stuck in the inertia of 1963 even as the world and the women around him changed.
Faye, who plays his landlord's daugher cum android in 2046 approximated closest to being Lizhen's substitute, being Chow's partner in writing of swordfighting stories, just as Lizhen had. But she was the only one who had a purely platonic relationship with Chow, because she was already in love with a Japanese (Takuya Kimura). Her delayed response to Takuya's "Do you love me?" was an emblem of the too-early-too-late motiff in Wong's films. A single tear drops, silence drags on, and Takuya says "Sayonara". Why did she hesitate? Did she really love him? He has no answer and hence travels to year 2046 to find the answer, because it is the place where nothing ever changes. Halfway through the 2046 story, Chow takes over the persona of the time traveller, as he seeks the answer to why Lizhen did not leave with him in 1963. Did she love him? Or was it because they met too late and she was already in love with her husband, who's always at "Japan" for business trips? In the end, Faye leaves for Japan to marry Takuya, just as how Lizhen chooses her husband over him. Faye and her Japanese lover was an eerie parallel to Lizhen and her unfaithful spouse.
The furistic part of 2046 with Faye and Liu Jia Ling as androids and Takuya Kimura as a time traveller is likely to drive you crazy if you don't understand their metaphoric existence and motivations. It was again, about regret, memory, restraint, repressed love that was never expressed in time. of being simultaneously too early, too late. I wonder however, if Wong had stretched 2046 too far. There is potential in expanding 2046 into an epic if more thought can be put into the furistic part of 2046 instead of the 60s affair with Bai Ling. Or, cut out the 60s part together and expand the time travel concept. One suspects it's because the camera and Wong loves Zhang Ziyi a little too much and wouldn't let her go.
In all, watch In the Mood for Love, and only 2046 if you're a Takuya Kimura fan. (But you will surely be disappointed with the 20 minute screen time that he has.)
Trivia: apparently, 2046 saw the falling out of Wong Kar Wei with his long time cinematographer Christopher Doyle (pity! he's a genius) and with Takuya Kimura. Due to the 5 year shooting and Wong's quirky working style of never having a script and developing the characters onsite drove some members of his crew crazy, enough is enough. Which reminds me how crew members of Greed quit their jobs too because they were convinced that the director was going to kill everybody by shooting unrelentlessly in the middle of Sahara desert.