Wong Kar-Wai
In The Mood For Love

In an era where reboots and remakes are the order of the day, I also feel in the mood to take part in this little game by proposing a review of a film already discussed on this platform in a beautiful, in my opinion, piece by Mr. Hellring: "In the Mood for Love" by Wong Kar-Wai.

Mr. Chow and Mrs. Zheng (respectively Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, both in a state of grace) are two neighbors, both married. When, however, they discover their respective spouses are lovers, they grow closer in an emotional bond that will strengthen more and more, until it becomes love, which will be interrupted when Chow has to leave for Singapore. After that, the two will never meet again.

I won't lie: I'm writing this review right after having finished watching the film for the first time, which is also the first work by the Chinese director I've ever seen. Therefore, I will not engage in fake analyses of Wong Kar-Wai's cinema but will limit myself to making some observations on what I have been able to learn about his style from this film, which I already feel, after the first viewing, can be defined as a masterpiece.

Silences that tell more than a thousand words and glances that reveal more than a thousand frames are the cornerstone of this "In the Mood for Love". The dialogues, never didactic and always very intense, are not what drive the plot forward, as all too often happens in modern cinema (especially in the Western one), but rather serve as a simple accompaniment to the actions that, with typically Chinese elegance, are shown to us. The cinematography gives us bright and delicate colors at the same time, making Wong Kar-Wai's magnificent compositions a true feast for the eye that loves Art (with a capital A). The camera caresses the protagonists, bringing the viewer close to them, but never allowing them to see the most intimate and private moments of the relationship between Mr. Chow and Mrs. Zheng: everything is left to the intuition of the viewer, who has the task of understanding what is not shown simply by observing the details, close-ups, and glances of the two protagonists. Who, although not single, are never filmed together with their respective spouses, as the director relegates the latter to hidden ghosts in the shadow of the off-screen, as if to visually emphasize the distance between husband and wife.

Everything in this film is elegance, any detail, even the least significant: one example among all is represented by the rich curls of cigarette smoke that Wong Kar-Wai shows us, often in an empty frame, without characters, smoke that entrusts its path full of curves and decorations to pure chance, almost having a sensual charge similar to that emanated by the beautiful lead actress. The slow motions, always accompanied by the beautiful main theme, are a real delight for the eyes and never without meaning, as in the case of those that show the lives of the two protagonists intertwining before establishing a real relationship, more and more, showing us how Chow and Zheng frequent the same places where they increasingly cross paths, a true overlap of their lives until they almost entirely coincide when Mrs. Zheng, upon arriving home, finds Mr. Chow in her home, just before their dinner outing together.

"In the Mood for Love" is definitely one of the best films of the new millennium and, in my opinion, one of the best ever. Delicacy and elegance, as well as a sense of reserve, are the watchwords of this film, which continues to live, as only great masterpieces can and know how to do, even after their end: what did Mr. Chow confess to that hole in the ruins in Cambodia? What secret did he hide in that small recess, covered with earth? No one will ever know. And perhaps it's better that way...