It’s been 25 years since Wong Kar-wai’s pièce de résistance, In the Mood For Love, premiered in Hong Kong. Set in the early 1960s, it follows two neighbors (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who find out their spouses are having an affair with each other.
In their constant absences, the two find a friendship — and something more — in each other, yet painstakingly remain at arm’s length, so as to avoid doing the same thing.
Having never seen the film, or any of Wong’s films for that matter, up until earlier this month, I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it. All I knew is that the movie star universe in the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All At Once draws heavy influence from this film. In the Mood For Love is a highly acclaimed film, which is why I’m disappointed to say that now that I’ve actually seen it, I find it to be overhyped.
With the film primarily centered in the apartments that Leung’s Mr. Chow and Cheung’s Mrs. Chan live in, In the Mood For Love can more or less be described as a chamber film. While that can make for effective storytelling, in this film’s case, it left me feeling more claustrophobic if anything. At the same time, I can imagine that likely being Wong’s point, which is that because the two live in close proximity of each other in a building home to many other people, it’s tricky to get close without causing a stir from everyone else. Still though, the urge for more breathing room to be represented in this film is strong.
The film clocks in at an hour and a half, and given how everything unfolds, I think it could have benefited from an extra half hour. It didn’t feel like there was enough time to get into the context of occurrences happening within the main love story, such as the fact that Mrs. Chan aids Mr. Chow in his pursuit of writing martial arts serials. I would have loved to see that be explored more. Getting to really see their dynamics with their respective spouses could have helped put a face to them, especially given what is revealed about them. While the film does touch on the relationships Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow have with their other neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances, even that could have been elaborated more — if anything to show more of who the two would have been going up against, had they been caught with each other.
The film’s runtime also paves way to my biggest issue with In the Mood For Love, which is its pacing. The time jumps are so jarring in between scenes, that I can barely catch my breath when I realize that time has passed since the previous scene. Mr. Chan is said to be away for business in one scene, and the following scene, he’s back. Mr. Chow is revealed to be ill in one scene, and one scene later, he’s good as new. The time jumps get even more jarring towards the end of the film, as years pass and locations change. It’s strange to say that this film is fast paced when the individual scenes alone don’t exactly match that description, but that’s where I’m at.
All that said, In the Mood For Love is definitely one of the more stylistically intriguing films that I’ve seen. Pause any moment in the film, and it can be framed and hung up in an art gallery. From its distinctive color palate, to the wardrobe, how it’s filmed, and of course the performances, it is a riveting take on a “will they, won’t they” scenario, only for them to not wind up together. I was surprised by them not pursuing each other in the end, making the subject of “the one that got away” another element borrowed by the Daniels for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Well, at least in the latter film, it does end on a happier note.
It’s been 25 years since the release of In the Mood for Love, and while I better understand the hype around it, I otherwise feel it’s a little overblown for a film that could have benefited in a lot of ways from a longer runtime. That being said, I am curious now to see what else Wong’s filmography has to offer.
