In the mood for In The Mood For Love

Twen­ty-five years after its pre­mière, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love con­tin­ues to be one of the most viewed and dis­cussed films in the con­tem­po­rary cin­e­mat­ic land­scape. Ranked fifth on the 2022 Sight & Sound Great­est Films of All Time list and logged by near­ly a mil­lion Let­ter­boxd users, the Hong Kong filmmaker’s 98-minute snap­shot of an abort­ed love affair con­tin­ues to reach audi­ences far beyond the shores of Vic­to­ria Har­bour. At the time of its pro­duc­tion, Mag­gie Che­ung and Tony Leung were already estab­lished names in Chi­nese-speak­ing com­mu­ni­ties world­wide, but the release of the film cat­a­pult­ed them into inter­na­tion­al star­dom, with the for­mer win­ning the Best Actor award at the 2000 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. Appear­ing every­where from cin­e­ma stud­ies syl­labi to social media, the sto­ry behind Wong’s most crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed work reflects its own nar­ra­tive of fore­gone desires and oppor­tu­ni­ties. From its high­ly impro­vised incep­tion, the film has blos­somed into some­thing much more than a por­trait of lovelorn neigh­bors who dis­cov­er their spous­es are hav­ing an affair. 

Wong’s first film released after the 1997 Hong Kong Han­dover, In the Mood for Love is the sec­ond instal­ment in the loose Chow Mo Wan tril­o­gy. Pre­ced­ed by Days of Being Wild, which Leung’s Mr. Chow only appears in once dur­ing the film’s very last shot, the film was fol­lowed by the series’ clos­ing chap­ter 2046 four years lat­er. Though this trip­tych of unful­filled desire has become a cor­ner­stone in Wong’s fil­mog­ra­phy, in 1998 Wong had very dif­fer­ent plans. Unable to secure the required per­mits to shoot his roman­tic musi­cal Sum­mer in Bei­jing from the Chi­nese author­i­ties, the direc­tor piv­ot­ed to anoth­er project titled A Sto­ry of Food, with Che­ung and Leung at the heart. Shift­ing his focus to the ​’60s Hong Kong of his child­hood, Wong began con­cep­tu­al­iz­ing the screen­play for this infor­mal sequel to Days of Being Wild, while writ­ing 2046 at the same time. After an on and off 15-month pro­duc­tion peri­od, search­ing for loca­tions across Hong Kong, Macau and Bangkok, the project would be final­ly real­ized as In the Mood for Love. At the 2001 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, as part of his ​“Leçon de Ciné­ma” mas­ter­class lec­ture, Wong screened a 9 minute film titled In the Mood for Love 2001. A con­tem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tion of Mr. Chow and Su Lizhen’s affair, the short was ini­tial­ly con­ceived as the ​“dessert” entry for Wong’s planned trip­tych cen­tered around food, giv­ing view­ers a taste of the director’s scrapped visions. 

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, Che­ung reflect­ed on the drawn-out shoot­ing process. She remarked that the cast and crew ​“were very frus­trat­ed that the film went on and on and on,” but that the extend­ed pro­duc­tion peri­od real­ly gave her time as a per­former ​“to real­ly get into it.” In a Sight & Sound inter­view with crit­ic Tony Rayns at the time of the film’s release, Wong admit­ted that he became ​“addict­ed” to work­ing on the film, ​“more specif­i­cal­ly the mood it con­jured up.” Through the film’s many trans­for­ma­tions, Wong and com­pa­ny refined the film’s res­o­nant, melan­cholic tex­ture. With ample time to sink their teeth into the char­ac­ters, Leung and Che­ung deliv­er the most restrained yet mem­o­rable per­for­mances of their careers. Metic­u­lous set design choic­es, detailed tai­lor­ing work and impec­ca­bly placed nee­dle drops come togeth­er to form a cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence that tran­scends boundaries. 

The film’s cult sta­tus is unde­ni­able. A New York­er arti­cle from two years ago exam­ined the film’s last­ing aes­thet­ic influ­ence, dub­bing Wong’s work a ​“nine­ty-minute mood piece.” Schol­ar­ly arti­cles and video essays have scru­ti­nized the film frame by frame, dis­sect­ing the sat­is­fy­ing sym­me­tries of door and win­dow frames that bind its pro­tag­o­nists inside their tiny Tsim Sha Tsui apart­ments. Mag­gie Cheung’s stun­ning silk cheongsams, designed by fre­quent Wong col­lab­o­ra­tor William Chang, have become a cul­tur­al ref­er­ence point for fash­ion design­ers around the world. Most recent­ly, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Hong Kong auteur, Milanese fash­ion house Pra­da debuted a new upscale din­ing con­cept in Shang­hai which incor­po­rates ​“soft, sat­u­rat­ed col­or palettes and dream­like aes­thet­ics” rem­i­nis­cent of In the Mood for Love. From Tum­blr posts to Pin­ter­est boards to count­less Tik­Tok edits, the film’s ​“look” has cer­tain­ly left a last­ing mark through­out the dig­i­tal sphere. 

In hind­sight, it is not sur­pris­ing that the film’s nos­tal­gic ren­di­tion of 1962 Hong Kong left such an indeli­ble influ­ence on an entire gen­er­a­tion of cineast­es. In the 2000s, Wong’s for­mal and nar­ra­tive restraint set him apart from the increas­ing­ly grandiose cin­e­mat­ic ambi­tions of both Chi­nese and Hol­ly­wood stu­dios. Dur­ing this peri­od, his peers like Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou chore­o­graphed com­plex fight scenes on pic­turesque vis­tas, inter­spersed with charged moments of intense melo­dra­ma. Wong resist­ed any temp­ta­tions towards man­u­fac­tur­ing max­i­mal­ist spec­ta­cles. Even com­pared to oth­er works in his oeu­vre, In the Mood for Love is notice­ably lack­ing in kinet­ic fren­zies of vio­lence or bursts of pas­sion­ate inti­ma­cy. Instead, the film con­sists of long takes where char­ac­ters, no more than one or two at a time, appear in the shot: writ­ing, eat­ing or sit­ting in plumes of cig­a­rette smoke. In close-ups, yearn­ing stares and brief moments of phys­i­cal con­tact are in full focus. In the wide shot, lone­some fig­ures walk away into the distance. 

Of course, the film’s last­ing lega­cy is more than just a mood board ref­er­ence. At the turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry, Wong’s mag­num opus exists in con­tra­dic­tion to the promis­es of a new age. As the inter­net instan­ta­neous­ly con­nect­ed bil­lions of users around the globe, In the Mood for Love real­ized an inter­per­son­al con­nec­tion that tran­scend­ed the frame­work of forums, chat rooms or video calls. For 25 years, gen­er­a­tions of view­ers raised in cyber­space con­tin­ue to res­onate with a decep­tive­ly sim­ple nar­ra­tive of a love affair that nev­er comes to fruition. In the wake of unfet­tered eco­nom­ic glob­al­iza­tion and the explo­sion of WiFi access around the world, Wong swam against the tides of dig­i­tal excess. Except for a few phone calls and a telegram, signs of mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy are absent from the film. By plac­ing us in the past, divorced from our con­nec­tions to the dis­trac­tions of the present moment, Wong mines for the raw essence of a feeling. 

The pro­tag­o­nists nev­er get to unleash their desires on screen. In the hands of anoth­er film­mak­er, Leung and Che­ung would’ve like­ly been direct­ed to throw them­selves into each other’s arms, undress­ing in a steamy cli­max to relieve the 90 min­utes of sim­mer­ing sex­u­al ten­sion. Against all con­ven­tions and instincts, Wong instead pulls his two star-crossed lovers apart. There is no scan­dalous affair, just a fleet­ing slip into a fan­ta­sy that nev­er tru­ly plays out. With the film’s con­clu­sion in mind, all the instances of con­trolled affec­tion, the silent stares, the late-night writ­ing ses­sions and the tame re-enact­ments of adul­tery feel even more erot­ic. The cou­ple don’t end up rid­ing off into the sun­set togeth­er, but the time they shared as neigh­bors has left a seis­mic impact on their lives. Like ide­al­ized mem­o­ries that stray fur­ther from the truth each pass­ing day, each of Wong’s images rev­el in the sat­u­rat­ed shad­ows of a nos­tal­gic mirage. 

In the Mood for Love clear­ly bears an impor­tant per­son­al mean­ing for its direc­tor. What was prob­a­bly intend­ed as a love let­ter to a bygone era of Hong Kong’s his­to­ry, a con­struc­tion of child­hood scenes where gos­sip­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers played Mahjong all night long, has now mutat­ed into a mourn­ful trea­tise to lux­u­ri­ate in fad­ing pasts. Whether it is a per­son, a place, or a mem­o­ry, every frame of Wong’s mas­ter­work allows view­ers to get lost in their own sink­hole of long­ing. Recent box office and crit­i­cal hits like the Daniels’ Every­thing Every­where All at Once or Celine Song’s Past Lives are evi­dence that Wong’s impulse for nos­tal­gia remains as wide­spread as ever. Though the for­mer is far more direct in its homage to Wong’s film, both grap­ple with visions of what could’ve been. A vivid recall of fond mem­o­ries and the inven­tion of alter­na­tive futures might be our best recourse in deal­ing with an over­stim­u­lat­ing, and over­bear­ing present. 

In The Mood For Love + In the Mood for Love 2001 will screen at venues across New York and Lon­don this summer.