In The Mood For Love (dir. Wong Kar Wai, 2000) - EveryFilmIWatch Review

In The Mood For Love is one of cinemas all-time great films, directed by one of its most talented practitioners, Wong Kar Wai. The film centres on two couples who live next door to each-other in cramped apartments in Hong Kong. We follow the husband from one couple and the wife from the other as they deal with the fact that their respective spouses have begun an affair with each other. We never meet the adulterers; they are reduced to off screen voices and blurred figures crossing the frame occasionally.

Our leads are played with total elegance by veteran Hong Kong actors Tony Leung and the elusive Maggie Cheung. Their chemistry as they play out this torturously beautiful friendship, their quietly expressive conversations, and their furtive glances are entirely engrossing. Wong Kar Wai’s directing is exquisite: he's the absolute master of colours, the palette revolving around the rich reds and dark greens of the various dresses Cheung finds herself in. The film is beyond controlled although you may be forgiven for missing this, such is the visual value of every frame. A photo portrait series worthy of the grandest galleries in Asia could be compiled from these stills. The story has a fragile melancholy to it and Wong Kar Wai, an artist obsessed with how timing can kill or create love out of anywhere, finds beauty in the sadness and a deep sense of perfection within the longing, visually translated through his masterful camerawork.

As if to put the cherry on top, the film boasts a perfectly complementary score composed by Shigeru Umebayashi. Four stanzas into the tragic waltz and your instantly transported into the shadowy streets of 60s Hong Kong. It’s one of those films which reminds you, in a world of reboots and multibillion dollar franchises, that cinema is an art form, and that true directors like Wong Kar Wai are auteurs to be cherished and respected.

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.