This week
film review is one of my most anticipated film to be screened in class! It is
Wong Kar-wai's In The Mood for Love! Will
discuss this film together with one of the film movement called French Impressionism.
French Impressionism?
This film movement was popular in 1919 to 1928. It
explores the psychological causes going through by the characters. It wants to
reveal play of the character’s consciousness. All in all, French Impessionism
concerns the mental states, dreams or fantasies.
In order to depict the mental states via cinematography
and editing, it uses irises, superimpositions and masks to indicate the
character’s inner thoughts and feelings. The visuals are usually distorted,
filtered and vertiginous to enhance the dizziness or durnknenness. Other than
that, it employs point-of-view and rhythmic editing to show the character’s
experience in a particular situation.
The
camera movements are smooth which is a result brought by the frame mobility.
The cameras are tieed to cars, wheels, bobsleds, cables etc.
French
Impressionism started to fade due to the lack of interests by mass and rising
production costs.
Synopsis – In The Mood for Love
Set in the 1962 Hong Kong, people rent out the rooms
in their apartments to the middle-class couples. Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are
tenants and neighbours in the same apartment. They build a strong bond after
suspect their spouses have affairs. This next-door neighbours fall in love with
each other, but they decided to keep their relationship platonic so they would
not commit the mistake which they spouse did.
Analysis
Why I so look forward to it? It is because Mr. Joe
once mentioned the film in a Year 1 class that the director change the script
just before the shoot. This challenge is quite a brave one, no? I don't really know about Wong Kar-wai. I only
know he is quite an artistic filmmaker, that’s it.
Before the
film screening, Mr Joe told us it is not a typical love story. Who would
thought the the married neighbours Mr Chow and Mrs Chan will fall in love with
eah other? This is really an exceptional love story, a love blossom out of
rejection. Not every love has the same way. In The Mood for Love shows the process
of falling in love, not the result, not the outcome. Although Mr Chow and Mrs
Chan have affection for each other, but they agreed not to commit the same
mistake of what their another half did, because they put themselves in the
spouses’ position and imagine how they would face the situation. The characters
are married, Story wise, creative and
incredible.
Another interesting point, the spouses never show their
faces in In The Mood for Love. We only
get to hear their voices, see their back. In addition, Mr Chow’s wife always
finish work late, Mrs Chan’s husband always go for outstation. And since the
story is about Mr Chow and Mrs Chan, what’s the point of making them visible? I
like the decision of making their spouses stay offscreen, this is bringing
filmmaking to another level.
Cinematography is outstanding too. The smoke above Mr
Chow’s head was present in slow-motion, it is to denote his state of mind, he
is frustrated. On the other hand, Mrs Chan has struggle too. The montage of she
walks up and down in the stairs, go here and there in the hallways, it’s a way
of showing thinking go or not to go in the hotel? Even though she stepped in,
she still frustate it before meeting Mr Chow in the room. Also, a shot of
peeping Mr Chow and Mrs Chan from the peeping window, is describing how the
outsiders will define the married has affair.
Out of all scenes, my favourite scenes are at the dark and
narrow alleyway, where Mr Chow and Mrs Chan mostly meet outside of their
apartment before their feeling grow bigger. Mrs Chow walk through the dark and
narrow alleyway to buy noodle, and sometimes Mr Chan has his supper fix there. The
scenes are slow paced as to show the time pass is slow, they are not happy with
their lives. They live alone, eat alone, buy noodle alone. Time has passed. It’s
repetiting. It’s boring. They are long for emotional freedom, which can be
understood from the background music. Bascially nothing has change, except the
emotions of both.
Even though Mrs Chan wear beauitful and colourful
cheongsam, the attractive look makes the contrast with her restrained emotions.
The film display people in that time live a good image
and not to disappoint others. But in the inside, they confuse. Even if living
in a crowded apartment, they still feel the loneliness. It’s how they face
their inner struggle by portraying a good image at the outside.
Conclusion
It’s nice to see how the abstract are being put in work. And of
course, such a brilliant film by Wong Kar-wai! I won’t mind to watch it for
second time, third time …
Reference
1 – In The Mood for Love’s IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118694/)
2- Film Studies lecture notes
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