In the Mood for Love (Archive)

Why marathon back in twenty twenty one. Why well, there are many reasons, including it's the film's twenty fifth anniversary, and Josh, it did clock in a number four on the New York Times list of the best movies of this Century so far.

the last twenty years. For example, back at the end of the last decade, in late two thousand and nine, the Guardian had In the Mood for Love as its forty eighth best film of the decade. Fast forward ten years late later, for a Best Films of the twenty first Century list, mood had moved up all the way

to number five. And then in twenty sixteen, the BBC pulled over one hundred critics for a Best Movies of the twenty first Century list, and In the Mood for Love landed at number two, right behind No Real Surprise to Me, My Beloved Mulholland Drive from director David Lynch, another film that has probably only grown in esteem over the years. Quickly the plot It's set in early nineteen sixties, Hong Kong sort of picks up where Days of Being

Wild left off. Josh, It's part of an informal trilogy with that film and Wong's later film twenty forty six. Tony Leung and Maggie Chung are neighbors in a cramp boarding house. They're both married, they're both lonely, and they soon realized that their spouses are having an affair with

each other. Leung and Chung bond over this betrayal and eventually do get quite close, but never act on their feelings for each other, this being a wong Y movie after all, Josh, give us a little bit of your history within the Mood for Love and how did it play this time for you in the context of the marathon. I feel like you Dean Happy Together, the last movie we discussed as the high point of the marathon so far,

maybe even rated it slightly higher than Chunking Express. Have we gone to yet another level here within the Mood for Love?

it in time. Why I didn't see it within that first year, I can't remember or really explain, but I remember seeing it fairly soon after loving it then and just loving it more the time or two I saw it. Since it's been a few years now, and yeah, I think, you know, if it's reputation isn't any stronger than it was initially, it has certainly you cited those lists that

it's made. It's certainly fended off a lot of comers in the years since it's been released to still stand as a monumental achievement, not only you know, for Wong, but cinema itself, and as far as Wang's filmography goes, I do think it's the pinnacle. I think at this point I only have one long film left that I need to see, my Blueberry Nights but I don't think

that's going to knock this off. Maybe the Happy Together distinction for me is that it's just so assured and confident and a little I'm trying to think of the right phrase that doesn't sound like I'm dismissing the previous films, which I've loved. But a little calmer, a little less forced, isn't the right word, because if you think about restraint,

it's all about restraint, and the filmmaking matches that. So if you think about, you know, what we had early on in something like Fallen Angels and the anticness of that which was really compelling or chunking express those pop song rhythms, which I loved. All of those flourishes are strengths of Wong's filmmaking and his previous films. But here you just get something that is dialed down a little bit.

Even from Happy Together, I would argue, because you know, Happy Together has those black and white segments, maybe a little more ostentatious use of the camera here or there. In terms of slow motion, I think it's very familiar from Happy Together. Happy Together is the close. It's like, this is just one step further in terms of the esthetics from Happy Together, and it's a it's a perfection

of what he was working on in film. I think. So, you know, I don't want to waste a lot of time, you know, saying why it's better than these other wonderful films. I just love this movie so much. On another revisit, it's one that you might think, Okay, there isn't a ton of plot here, so how many times can you

watch this before there might not be enough to engage in. Well, you know, there'll be a new lamp in the background that you'll engage with this time because you have the time now to just sit and appreciate why that lamp was chosen, where it's placed in the shot, what colors it's it's reflecting or working with. How the typewriter in this scene perfectly matches Maggie Chung's dress and all this there.

you when we get to those awards. They said, you know, you guys keep talking about Tony Leung and how great he is and how he's the unsung kind of master collaborator of this marathon. Maybe unsung's not quite the right word because we keep talking about him. The suggestion was maybe we should call, cheekily, we should call the awards the Tony's and I know we both like that idea

a lot. But of course, now you watch in the Mood for Love and I start to question whether or not it's really Tony Leong, because maybe it's Maggie Chung who's been in multiple films so far, or what about Christopher Doyle, who I think has lensed all of the movies so far. And maybe my real answer as far as who is the MVP, the MVP collaborator, the MVC will go with Josh William Chang as the costume designer and the production designer. Here I mean well, and.

themes and concerns we've discussed so far. Loneliness. When you think about it, how this relationship, if we can really call it that, how it starts is that these are just two people who needs somebody to talk to. That's really it, right, They are so alone and this idea of having unfulfilled desire or hopeless love, whatever terminology you want to apply to his films, And we've talked about how rarely in this marathon we've actually seen sexual passion

or explicit eroticism. Well, here I mentioned the whole film was about restraint. It's all built around the conceit of Chow and missus Chan not acting on their feelings right and maintaining these appearances of propriety. And I've noted that Wong seems preoccupied with the notion that love is really only good when it's not realized, or maybe to put

a finer point on it, when it's not consummated. And the Chinese version, or one version of this movie's title, at least according to the Criterion Collection edition notes, is kind of like the Most Beautiful Times, And if you think about it, it's so appropriate, of course, because at the end of this movie, aren't they both trying to kind of recapture their past to an extent, or at least parts of it, even if they have no intentions

of actually seeing each other again. They're romanticizing this time of their life, despite the fact that it's one in which both of their spouses were cheating on them and they had to completely withhold their feelings for each other.

I also think that the title transitions perfectly to the next obsession, and it's that use of the words kind of like Wong's characters love to act, to play, pretend, to create scenarios, and to try on other roles in order to try to process their feelings and their understanding of the world. And we see these characters here actually kind of trace the steps of their spouses and they play out and discuss how he's acting like her husband,

and vice versa. And that line, how devis stating and great a line is Maggie Chung's we won't be like them. She says it's so matter of factly, but it's almost as if she by saying it is making it so. It's this directive that she's putting out into the world, and there's just a little bit of hesitation maybe or

her being unsure when she says that line. But it's just devastating because you immediately understand that motivation of not wanting to be like these spouses who have made them feel this way, and of course you understand the consequences of that directive as well, saying will be will be better than them, basically, even if it means we're worse off, even if it means we have to pretend this very real thing is not real, and it's just a fantasy

to us. So they're driven maybe by morality to an extent, and also perhaps masochism, but that kind of masochism is real. That feeling is real and intense and maybe more intense and something more transcendent than actually succumbing to your desires. At least that's what they hope, and at least that's what it seems Wang is exploring here.

work is done without dialogue. But there is another role plane sequence where she's imagining her husband confessing mister Child's playing the husband here, and she just breaks down when he does and says, I didn't expect it to hurt so much. And what that reveals is that you know they've been doing this role plane as a way of building up defenses, as a way of not facing the reality and at that point it all falls apart. Oh yeah,

money Kundos. I think she is so magnificent in this movie because she's she has even more reticence than Leung does, at least her character missus Chan. I love going back to the dresses here. It's it's built into the costume design because these are these I think there are Chung Sam dresses. So the neck, the very high neck, and it's it's like there's this wall actually built around her under her chin, just keeping things out. And that sequence

is where it does just does all come. It invades, like the hurt invades, and we see it on her face. This is where you know, the implacable expression. We've seen her have so much, even even to mister Child. You know she only lets him in so far. It does come crashing down here, and it echoes a later scene years later where she's just standing by. She revisits the apartment complex and is just standing by a window and

you see her forcing down those exact same tiers. So I think Cheung is amazing in this and it's hard to talk about them separately because this is one of those paired performances where what one does helps the other. In the performance, they have this you know, they're in perfect rhythm. Her reticence is in perfect rhythm with Leung's reserve because he is kind of tapping into something we've

seen before. I think he has more of the resigned melancholy we saw as the beat cop in Chunking Express than he did in Happy Together, there was more of a spurned anger. I think here he's more back to this resigned melancholy. I like how he claims at one point that he doesn't brood over his wife's infidelities, and his friend says, well, all that means is that you're quote bottled up right, and so so this is more

costume design coming into play. His immaculate suits, his perfectly combed hair that alsuggests, yeah, he's not rough armor, but it's an armor. Yeah, he's pretending not to be ruffled by this. But watch Leung's eyes and this goes back to the you know we don't need dialogue, how they change every time he looks at her, at missus chand it's like a there's some panicked longing there because he

it's reminding him of what he's suffering. It's also reminding him of the pledge they made together, and how he really doesn't want to stick to that, because I think he makes more moves watching this again than she does to kind of break that pledge. He's always respectful, but he opens the door or at least knocks on the door a couple of times, and you see that in

his eyes as well. So these two are just so perfectly in sync in this film that you can't imagine it working at all without one of them if you substitute a different actor.

the viewer. So in that scene, because he has made a decision from the very beginning to veil the spouses, we never see them, we hear them. They're behind closed doors, sometimes they're on the other side of a wall. We see the backs of their head, but we never actually

see them. That means that when she is seated there and we're looking at her seated to the side and he is directly in front of us with his back turned to the camera as he sits, there's a second where I felt, anyway that oh, the husband's returned and she's actually she is confronting him, And of course it turns out that it's not. It's the rehearsal. It's the rehearsal of that confrontation, and she gets to act through it and see and experience those emotions with Tony Leung.

And then near the end what seems to be their breakup. It's the moment where you think they have finally decided that this surely isn't going to work. What is inevitable, what they even know is inevitable, that they're never going to come together. So they say goodbye to each other, and we as viewers, at least I did, Josh Again,

maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. I was watching the thinking, oh man, this is it, this is the goodbye, and then to find that Leung basically says, no, remember that's just the rehearsal, you know, that's just the practice. We still we still get to be with each other for at least a little while longer. It's really powerful, and I think there's really something powerful to that whole

notion of cinema, I think being this tool. I've argued this before, cinema being a tool for us as viewers to rehearse how we engage with the world. We see how other people act and behave in situations that we have seen ourselves in, or imagine ourselves could be in, or maybe imagine that we could never handle, and we see how they go through it, and maybe it informs

our sense of the world. Well, Now, imagine if you were a filmmaker like Wankar, why who is not only a passive viewer, but you're the one who's getting to sort of act out. You're getting to rehearse, You're getting to stage these scenes and act out your deepest fears and longings through these mini plays within this larger construct.

It's just something that really appeals to me. And I don't know if I've said it before in this marathon, but that infatuation with role playing, I imagine is a reason why whether he's articulated it or not, I don't know why Quentin Tarantino has always been such a fan of One Car, why because they share that same obsession.

Speaking of listeners, yes, it was Ellen Chesher at c H E s H E l l E N on Twitter who suggested the Tonys, which is just so good, fantastic. So I think we've probably covered the performances, even though

there's maybe more we could say, but definitely highlights. I want to jump back to the filmmaking and just talk about some of these mood moments that we get in this film where I'm afraid by my talking about this being a more reserved movie for someone who hasn't seen it, they might think it's more conventional than his other pictures, and it's absolutely not like this is this is pure wankhar why because we get these mood moments, including the montage of them passing each other on the way to

the noodle stall maybe my favorite sequences in the film. It's something that is recurring. It kind of at first shows us their loneliness. They're going out to get dinner because they are not going to cook it for someone else. There's no one else home. They're each in this situation and they pass each other a handful of times. And this is where the slow motion comes into play. This is where that theme music, the shagiro Umbayashis Yumeggi's theme

comes into play. And even that is interesting, you know how it has these lilting violins to it. It's it's somewhat similar to the tango music we heard and happy to ge other, but also it seems like even a step back from that in terms of its pace and its rhythm. And it's just the slow motion in here is also very judicious. Sometimes it's raining when they're doing this. That adds another level to it. And those I could have watched them go back and forth to get their

noodles for the entire running time of this movie. Just for the little variations each time and where the camera is, how much lighting is allowed in that stairway so that they can not really see each other's faces. The next time, maybe they do see each other's faces a little bit more. And it's all these imperceptible changes that are so important, And that is where the emotional element of this just

hits me the hardest. It's like you're watching these two halves of a broken heart throb when they pass each other, and it captures everything that you need to know about where they are at in that moment, and it carries through past where they even go together. So that's that's like, that's what their time together was, passing each other on those stairways, even if they do end up becoming a little closer later.

answer to, but you know you need to return to them. Yeah, sure, sure, so I wrote down why does the camera hide?

is really pretty magnificent. And just in general, how many times do we see them obscure To go back to your point too, about the lighting and as they pass each other, it's as if you are eavesdropping on them. It's as if you are there in the hallway, that

cramped hallway. Again, it's long relying on a very close technique, not a lot of master shots though, of course, when we get on the street, and there are some elements to the production design where we do kind of take in the expanse of the scene but especially when they're indoors, when they're in those apartment settings, when they're moving in together,

he's really emphasizing how close they are. You're always seeing them in a medium shot or medium close up or a close up, so that eavesdropping sort of effect adds to that tension. But then how about this, I'm gonna ask you a question here, Josh, And I think the fact that there may be isn't one answer or one go to answer for one hundred people you pose this question to helps signify just how special this movie is. But if I asked you, let's skip romantic gestures for now.

We're gonna get to that eventually. And there are multiple in this film, and there's one really amazing one that did in fact make your top five from this movie back in twenty thirteen. But when we do talk about eroticism, something something close to sexiness, true sultry sexiness in this film, something that actually kind of radiates some real intensity. Do you have a moment like that from this movie?

suit in the rain, ducks under the awning. Next door, offers his jacket to her. She says, we can't go in together, or if they see your jacket they'll know. He runs and gets an umbrella, brings it back. She says, I can't take your umbrella. So after all these romantic gestures, he finally just says, and I wish I could remember the words, but then I'll just be here with you and leans back against the wall. And I love the next beat silence that they don't say anything to each other,

and they just that to me. I don't know why, is like credibly sexy. They're just completely comfortable sitting there.

him as he puts it on her plate. Now, even before this, I'll just mention, when we're talking about technique, this is a movie where the camera is mostly pretty still. We've talked about how restrained overall the I where.

whatever she's eating. But he has put it on her plate for her, and she hesitates, and then what does she do? She dips her entree into it and then eats it as voraciously as as Maggie Chung does anything voraciously in this movie. But I swear to you, Josh, at the exact moment, I'm thinking to myself, while that was hot? He says, do you like it hot? And and let's be clear, Tony Leung is not Roger Moore. I don't know that there's any double on Tondra intended.

There's nothing winking about his performance.

was responding to how charged that scene was. I could give you the play by play and really make my point, but I think, Josh, it would make you blush, and I don't want to embarrass you here on the show. But it is undenied. It's about sexual, It's undeniably sexual because it's about it's about power. He doesn't ask, he puts it on her plate. He makes the move to put it on her plate to basically suggest that he wants her to to try that, to eat it, and

she does, she submits to it. It's it's a pretty incredible scene.

of years later. I think we're about sixty six now, and the politics kind of come into play in some oblique ways. I think, though it is interesting before this last sequence, Adam, you get that comment. I think it's when we're back at the apartment building a couple years later. It might be like sixty four at that point, and a new resident I think says people are leaving Hong Kong because things have gotten quote too chaotic, So that's

kind of like a little hint of some instability. But this sequence is in Cambodia at the end nineteen sixty six, and yeah, we get this newsreel footage all of a sudden, I guess to set, you know, at first, I'm like, okay, this is setting the time and place. But it's this parade I think, with the prince and princess and French President Charles de Gaulle, and so I'm thinking, okay, this

is sixty six. Did just some brief, very brief research, but it looks like that would have been just before the Vietnam War kind of destabilized Cambodia and spread into Cambodia. Then we get that final sequence in ank or Watt, where we're just with mister Chow Leung and he is maybe I don't want to spoil all of it, but

this is the romantic gesture. But he's basically wandering the ruined ancient temple complex there, so a lost civilization that is no longer It's basically something that tourists go to visit at this point. And so I'm realizing that, you know, all of these things are suggestions of not only like territories that are being destabilized in Hong Kong countries in Cambodia, and then an entire civilization that has failed to last.

And I'm just thinking of, you know, how could he have expected that this relationship, first of all, his own marriage to last, then this relationship to last when like these massive civilizations crumble in the face of what a long obsession time. All of these things are suggestions of time bearing down, things are about to change the way that things always change, and instability is the only constant, and as we've seen, unhappiness because of that is often

the only constant. So that's just kind of a vague stab at maybe some of the political tie ins. I know, it doesn't get into any of the details of the realities of Hong Kong during this era or later, you know, eventually what thirty years later would have been transferred from colonial rule to China. But maybe that's something.

Here it is interesting that moment when all of a sudden we cut to newsreel footage is so jarring compared to everything we've seen before, this mood piece where we are just enveloped in this world and these dresses and the production design that we've touched on, and then all of a sudden we're watching Charles Degall. It's like we've all of a sudden been thrust into the real world and we've been in a fantasy up until this point.

It reminded me actually in a way, in a completely different way, but it took me out of the moment in the same sort of fascinating way that the end of Kiristami's Taste of Cherry, where all of a sudden we get some whole movie footage, and if I'm remembering correctly, we see Kiristami himself like making the movie that we

just watched. So again, very different, but in some ways for me, a similar effect, where you are taken out of this kind of hypnotic reverie with this movie and reminded that, oh, all of this is happening in a real world, a much larger world, where they're just one kind of tiny speck in the universe, and that of course, I think does set up ultimately the grandness of that romantic gesture. So maybe that is a nice way to

get back to the question you posed. And I don't know if we want to go ahead and throw out that. If people want to not have In the Mood for Love further spoiled, they could stop listening at this point. But Warner West, I believe Warner West in Atlanta, He's in the atl Josh, what's his question? What's his query?

kind of guessing what he's hinting at. But towards the end is where we see her return to rent an apartment in the same complex where they were years earlier, and she has a child with her, So I'm wondering if what Werner is suggesting I haven't read others takes, but that this may be mister Chow's child that they did in fact consummate the relationship at some point.

It's another just great wangkhar WHI, like, you know, time shifting in just the wrong way moment. So yeah, I mean I definitely considered this as I was watching, is like, you know, have we just not seen them take that step. I like to think Adam, for the reasons we've been talking about that it's in keeping with all of the other films he has made that they would not have and that retains it's not even really the moral question as much as the the auturist question. You know, it

retains the au tourist integrity of his filmography. But I can totally see that reading, and that in fact, would add another layer of melancholy and sadness if he did not only miss on reuniting with her, but his child potentially. But I don't know did Where did you kind of come down on that?

know about it but eventually does discover the news. For me, I just can't, I can't abide that reading of the film. I think it's it's too it's too in conflict with

everything we've expressed, everything we've seen in this marathon. You're right that it does add another layer of melancholy, which would seem appropriate, So you could you could go with that argument, But for me, the idea that they ever did actually act like their spouses that they gave in In a way, maybe it makes them more human, But I don't think that's what wankar Whi is really interested

in here. I think he's he's interested in the provocation of these people in the philosophical kind of consequences, the existential consequences of them making that decision. In sticking to it, we won't be like them. So I think my reading is the one where she has at some point separated from her husband or perhaps he's passed. She did get a child from that marriage, and that you imagine allows her to be a little less alone in life. But it doesn't have to be mister Chow's kid.

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