Wong Kar-Wai #1: Szerelemre hangolva / In the Mood for Love

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

(In the Mood for Love - in original language with Hungarian subtitles)

color, subtitled, Hong Kong-France-Thailand, 98 min., 2000

directed by: Wong Kar-wai

starring: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai

***Not recommended for children under 12!***

Hong Kong, 1962: Chow, the editor-in-chief of a local daily newspaper, and his wife move into a new apartment in an upscale neighborhood. On the same day, Li-Zhen and her husband move in next door. It is striking that both moved in without the help of their spouses. They begin spending more and more time together as their partners are often away, citing work. One day, they realize that their spouses are actually each other’s lovers. The discovery shocks them both. Chow is keeping a secret that was originally meant to be sweet revenge, but ended quite differently. Li-Zhen, whose husband had been having an affair with Chow’s wife for some time, has now fallen into the trap set by Chow. The revenge was perfect—or so it seemed. But then something happened that Chow hadn’t anticipated: he fell in love with Li-Zhen...

"In the Mood for Love" is a film about the eroticism of restraint. The latest film from the grand master of Hong Kong cinema is an exquisitely sensitive, lyrical, and melancholic work about a man and a woman. In this film, the director portrays the nature of the relationship between a man and a woman with greater tenderness; his characters live in a unique timelessness, unburdened by the past. Here, the two shy lovers experience their most stirring emotions through imagination or silent recollection. The boundaries between factual events and the imaginary blur uncertainly. It seems they weave the stages of this impossible love from within, each in their own way. Most of the time, we don’t even know whose fantasy it is: the man’s or the woman’s; they become interchangeable, if not intentionally identical. This doubling draws the reverie into a poetic /ir/reality, suggesting the miracle of closeness, and creating the indivisible unity of the film’s aura. “In my films, various episodes of a single work appear.” /Wong Kar-wai/

(port.hu)