IN
THE MOOD FOR LOVE
There is something in the divergence between literature
and film that too many movies allow us to overlook - and into which
too many others collapse upon themselves. It is not in the rejection
of conventional narrative or in reading between the lines. It is not
in the filling of gaps between telling and showing, or in the creation
of experimental imagery. The potent distinction between the two media
is in the conceptualization of the lines themselves -- in the imagining
of the parameters of evocation.
To
watch Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love is to be immersed in
that distinction - to be engulfed in the uniqueness of cinematic expression.
Sitting in the darkness of the theater as this not unfamiliar tale of
man and woman unravels, one cannot help but revel in the power of color
and shadow, sound and silence; one cannot help be moved by the strategies
of angle and lighting, costume and composition, movement and stillness.
Though it opens and closes with the starkness of words on a page, or
in part because it does, In the Mood for Love focuses the viewer
on that which is not said, not sayable. It confronts the articulated
specificity of description with the inarticulable commonality of experience.
Loneliness and hurt, uncertainty and indecision, desire, happiness,
regret and love's passages all resonate as both particular to the individuals
on the screen and general to the whole of us. The symbolism and suggestion
are direct, but subtle, and well-designed for an audience coaxed to
feel rather than think the film through. And there is not a second's
worth of pretension in it all.
"It is a restless moment," the words on the screen tell us as the
film opens, simple white on simple black, following immediately upon
the unadorned and equally blunt yellow-on-red titles. It is "Hong Kong
1962."
More
mood than action, Wong Kar-Wai's latest story is a simple one: a man
and a woman, both effectively abandoned by their mates, meet and live
their lives in temporary tandem within the strongholds of a tradition
we are given to sense rather than study. We learn very quickly, if not
in detail, that Mrs. Chan/Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk), and Mr.
Chow/Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) have come to the same place in
their lives. Both happen upon the same building, looking for and finding
rooms in apartments along the same narrow hallway. Both have partners
that are often away - out of town or just unreachable. And on moving
day, which they inadvertently time together, the things that belong
to each wind up in the other's space.
Stolen
glimpses down cramped corridors, near-erotic pas de deux along tapered
stairways, hope attentive through doorframes, anticipation breathless
at thresholds, Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan move together from a distance
in a chaste choreography that sizzles with sensual possibility. Theirs
becomes a shared constraint in a place where noisy landlords drink and
gamble into the night and wayward spouses are reduced to faceless forms
and disembodied voices. "You are too polite," one landlord tells them
both. Too, too, polite, we think.
In the Mood for Love is not a story of romantic idealism. Mrs.
Chow, secretary in a shipping company, facilitates her boss's philandering
as part of her job, and Mr. Chan, journalist, manages colleagues with
running tabs at bordellos. But each has a life that hinges on the promise
of escape from cold reality - she can procure tickets to far-away places,
he can write and sell fantasies to martial arts serials. We do not wonder
if they will or will not fall in love . . . we wonder only if they will
act upon that promise.
Outside
the crowded passageway within which they live side by side, the open
city stifles them still. In familiar restaurants, shared taxi cabs and
deserted alleys with concrete walls, temptation taunts them. Day and
night the sky falls upon them and torrential rains dampen their dreams.
We will not be like them, they say of their spouses off somewhere together
- a revelation the means of which is as tangential to the storyline
as are the errant lovers themselves - but they do play their spouses'
roles, each for the other, in sad recreations of what was, and heartbreaking
rehearsals for what will be. We watch, helplessly, as identities blur
and intentions are clouded.
The film does not tiptoe around the truth that this is a tale as old
as tradition itself. The interchangeability of characters and roles
and the constancy of inconstancy stand at once as the film's inner calm
and its unavoidable sadness. The two wives walk up the stairs with the
same sensual sway of the hips; handbags and ties proliferate among wives
and mistresses, husbands and lovers. Until, unobtrusively and without
much noise, the story of Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow becomes a mark of the
quiet rebellions and infinitesimal changes that whisper the way of the
individual's and the world's evolution.
Image
is what counts in this place, in this film, and Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow
cloak themselves in tradition to avoid both risk and reputational ruin.
She in her buttoned-up cheongsams and high heels, he in his sober-toned
shantung suits and narrow ties - they repress themselves in the high
style of their day and wear their restrictions as badges of honor. Confined
to his quarters for a full night and day, she dare not even remove her
shoes . . . even as the comfortable silk women's slippers at the edge
of the bed tempt her in a thousand ways. But life's substance is in
the accessories (like the discovery of their cheating partners' partners),
and as the film progresses, so do their wardrobes . . .the fabric of
her dresses becomes just a
little
bit richer, the necks higher, the patterns more expressive (it is a
breathtaking collection, echoed, filtered and complemented by the surrounding
scenery), while his ties become brighter and more colorful. And in the
background, as it goes, Nat King Cole, in accented Spanish, brings a
sort of awkward beauty to their longing and their frustrations: "Quizas,
quizas, quizas" - perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
As the characters advance in sentiment and sensuality, the setting
changes . . . the claustrophobic walls of their shared apartment building
make way for the red-curtained couloir of the building in which Mr.
Chow has rented a new room - a room to give space to his fantastical
stories, and voice to Mrs. Chan in their creation. Even the style of
the editing is altered. From the clipped near-snapshots of the exposition,
glimmers of suggestion, we move into an even and deliberately-paced
denouement. The dignity of the characters, the effectiveness of the
actors, the camera's vision and the director's hand come together to
take us in . . . to absorb us into the film's own compulsions. And then
it breaks again. Editing, style, tone, image.
"That
era has passed. Nothing that belongs to it exists anymore," the ending
begins with white words again against the black screen. The film concludes
with no fewer than three epilogues . . . chopped up and incomplete in
some storytelling sense - historical, religious, political in ways the
film is otherwise not - but whole together and unto themselves, taking
us not where we might have wanted to be, but further, somehow, than
we might have expected to go.
Among the most sophisticated and heart-rending romances to grace our
screens in far too long, the lingeringly-paced In the Mood for Love
is perhaps neither set nor styled to satisfy all viewers. But it remains,
nonetheless, a film no one should miss.
CineScene, 2001
