In the Mood for Love (2000)

 

Genre: Romance/Drama

Time: 1h 38mins

Director: Wong Kar-wai

Quick Summary: Two neighbours form a strong bond after both suspect the extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic to avoid committing similar wrongs.

This is dreamily romantic but heavily melancholy. It's not a perfect film, but it will stick with you. A beautiful portrayal of a doomed romance. 

I adore this aesthetic, set in the '60s, full of bold patterns and colours that all work together wonderfully. The leading actress is always dressed in dresses that are incredibly bright and stand out completely against the background. The shots are so pretty to look at as well, most of the time the characters are shot through mirrors or not really in the centre of the frame which creates an amazing visual experience. Each shot is perfectly placed and you can tell a lot of attention went into each and every one.

To go along with this the score is so good. There's one piece that plays throughout the whole film that is so iconic to this. At first, I was a bit annoyed by it and found it to be overused but it grew on me, and it managed to create this sense of longing with each scene it was added to. So many emotions are shown with just one theme playing, it really adds an extra power of emotion to this. 

Now this film is slow and it does jump around with time a lot, so it's one you really have to focus on. I don't think the pacing is bad at all though. I liked how it hops through their time together, almost like recalling memories. It's snippets of how they were together and feels incredibly melancholy to me. Not a lot of the romance is expressed through words either. It's expressed through glances, movements, and the atmosphere which I found incredibly interesting, although if you're not paying attention to the film it can be easy to miss. 

I loved the camerawork in this, not just with the framing but with just how it moves. It gives us peaks into the lives of the pair. I like this because throughout the film the pair struggle to be around each other in fear of gossip and being watched, so essentially the viewer is doing exactly what they fear. The camera moves around corners, through windows, and across hallways. 

This is perfectly sensitive to its information, the dialogue is sparse but like the rest of the movie, is imbued with meaning. In the cheating spouses you never actually see the faces which I liked because the film is focused on the leading pair, you don't need to know what the other pair looks like. You never know if the pair are actually being themselves, or if they are pretending to be their cheating spouses. 

What was incredibly interesting was that instead of being angry or upset about their partners, they choose a different path and choose to try and figure out why they did what they did. The pair pretend to be their own partners and create this fantasy of them falling in love. It gets to the point where they are frustrated with each other if they say a response that their partner wouldn't say, or do something they wouldn't do. Sometimes you're not even sure who they are talking to at the time since the camera focuses on one side of the conversation. Eventually, it becomes too difficult for the pair to continue this fantasy as they fear it's becoming a reality and the pretending has gone too far. 

Romance is shown so uniquely with such a gentle sadness to it. It becomes incredibly heartbreaking as the film goes on but there is such a big sense of maturity to it. Timing, culture and the difficulty of emotions are big themes in this. The chemistry between the leading pair is wonderful to watch, as it never explodes in passion or comes across as a great sexual attraction. It's a platonic love that grows to be much more than you can see as it gradually grows but you never see the full thing, you only get to see snippets of this love story.

Overall sad but greatly romantic. Not everyone would enjoy this film, as in retrospect not a lot actually happens and it can be hard to follow if you're not paying attention. 

8/10

" I didn't think you'd fall in love with me."

"You notice things if you pay attention."

"Why did you call me at the office today?

 I had nothing to do. I wanted to hear your voice."