Classic Film Club: 'In the Mood for Love'

Each week Tom Huddleston watches a classic film he's never seen before. The rules are simple: each film must be considered a masterpiece and each must be completely new to him. This week: Wong Kar-Wai's 'In the Mood for Love' (2000)

Before his spectacular crash and burn with first American feature ‘My Blueberry Nights’, Wong Kar-Wai was considered one of cinema’s living greats. That reputation was birthed with ‘Days of Being Wild’ (1990), gathered pace with ‘Chungking Express’ (1994) and ‘Happy Together’ (1997), and came to fruition with 2000’s ‘In the Mood for Love’, which won a fistful of awards for both Wong and his star Tony Leung, including the Palme d’Or at Cannes and BAFTA’s Best Foreign Film.

Much like previous Classic Film Club, Dreyer’s ‘Ordet’, ‘In the Mood for Love’ is a hard film to criticise. This is partly because Wong is a writer/director of supreme confidence: his films exist entirely on their own terms, seeking neither your admiration or condemnation; indeed, one gets the distinct impression they would exist, and keep running, even if there was no one there to watch and appreciate them. But it’s also because there is, in literal terms, so little to criticise about the film: both as a piece of technical filmmaking and as a simple character study, ‘In the Mood for Love’ is practically flawless. That isn’t to say it’s a perfect film, if that mythical beast even exists. But it is a film which knows exactly what it wants to achieve, and for the most part succeeds effortlessly.

The story takes place in repressive 1960s Hong Kong, as neighbourly acquaintances Mr Chow (Leung) and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung) realise that their respective spouses have embarked on a secret affair, and begin an equally clandestine, furtive friendship of their own. Like Chow and Chan, Wong’s script plays close to the chest, refusing to make explicit the nature of the central relationship, the characters expressing themselves as much through silent sighs and sidelong glances as through dialogue or direct action.

The film’s title is ironic, even a little sadistic: these are characters who want desperately to love and be loved, but find themselves so cornered by circumstance that this proves impossible. Instead, they live vicariously through their faithless spouses, re-enacting imaginary scenes and conversations that might have taken place between the adulterers, testing one another’s resolve and affections in the process. These scenes have the stifling, claustrophobic feel of a British wartime romance, filled with longing looks, bitten lips and awkward words spoken to fill the silences. Leung and Cheung are extraordinary, simultaneously expressing desire and reluctance, exhilaration and self-disgust, exploring these lonely, buttoned-down figures without ever becoming distant or unsympathetic.

But the look of the film couldn’t be further removed from the monochrome austerity of its British predecessors, luxuriant in rich, full colour, soft skin tones and deep, embracing shadows, the now-familiar work of Wong’s regular cameraman Chris Doyle. The director frames his scenes with a signature combination of intimacy and exploration, coolly examining the way bodies and objects interact while still getting to the emotional core of every situation.

The unrelenting, linear drive of the film’s first two acts is slightly undermined by a tragic but disarmingly unresolved ending, in which the artful elegance of Wong’s approach overwhelms the simple, emotive power of his narrative. It could also be argued that Wong’s signature repetition of soundtrack elements (in this case, Nat King Cole’s rendition of Spanish classic ‘Quizas’) becomes ever so slightly trying. But still, ‘In the Mood for Love’ is one of the defining works of twenty-first century cinema, and a remarkable career high for a director (now embarking upon an ill-advised remake of Orson Welles’s ‘The Lady from Shanghai’) who seems increasingly unlikely ever to top it.

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