"In the Mood for Love" turns 25 this year, so I dug back into my archives for this tribute to the Hong Kong art house favorite, which will be screening at Digital Gym Cinema through Sept. 4.
"In the Mood for Love" has only grown more intoxicating with age. Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai has been whipping up heady romantic cocktails for decades. He compares his films to jam sessions, improvised on the spot.
"I'm the bandleader. I just keep everything in tune," Wong told me back in 2000 for an NPR story I did.
Wong starts with just an idea and writes dialogue on the set as he shoots. Sometimes he leaves a scene completely free of dialogue.
"But he's just constantly suggesting to the audience what's going on between them," actress Maggie Cheung said. "And it leaves a lot of space for the audience to imagine the rest. You feel you're an outsider when you're an audience, that you're peeping into the story of these two people."
In this case, two characters move into the same apartment building on the same day.
"People seem to be very isolated, even if they seemed like very close to each other, but they are very isolated," added actor Tony Leung.
Leung plays Mr. Chow opposite Cheung’s Mrs. Chan. The two strangers soon discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other.
"We did the scenes in a slow motion that we see each other in the stairs of the noodle stand," Cheung said. "We would look at each other, but just passing. You feel these two are very lonely people. And what brought them together was the big crisis in their life. And that other person is the only person that they can share it with."
Cheung's performance is celebrated not just for her nuanced emotions as Mrs. Chan but also for her striking appearance. Mrs. Chan is always perfectly coiffed and dressed as if she walked off a Vogue cover.
Cheung explained why she cultivated this look: "She is a deeply wounded person from her past — true or not, but that's the way I see her. That's why she has developed into such a woman that she needs all that dressing up and that perfection in how she looks to hide her sadness and pain and to look strong. Because she is so scared of being hurt again that she's reserving a lot of herself for herself and not showing it, expressing it to other people."
And with Leung, you only need his eyes to express what’s going on.
"I think it's because of my own background that makes me express something through my eyes without saying a word," Leung said. "Because I came from a broken family when I was a kid. And I was very restrained and suppressed, very much like the character in 'Mood for Love.'"
"In the Mood for Love" is romantic but never sentimental. It sweeps you up in a rapturous style while exploring aching desires and the possibility — and impossibility — of love. Immerse yourself in this world while it is on the big screen at Digital Gym Cinema.
