“Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time” – essay by Stephen Teo

“Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time,” an essay from Senses of Cinema, by Stephen Teo.

“The English title itself [In the Mood for Love], of course, strikes the key to the picture, suggestive of foreplay or a kind of mind-massage. What Wong Kar-wai does for an hour and a half is to butter up his audience for two or three levels of mood play: a mood for love, to begin with; but even more substantially, a mood for nostalgia, and a mood for melodrama. In Wong’s rendition of the melodrama, we have a romance picture that works mainly as a two-hander chamber play, illustrated by contemplative snippets of popular music that also help to recreate the ambience of Hong Kong in the 1960s.”

In all his works, Wong Kar-Wai is a master of mood & character & place. I never fail to lose myself in his cinematic eye and tones. This is my favorite of his films – a beautiful work of art. His writing modus operandi is to work without a script – and he certainly does this with Mood – allowing the story to find itself. The final version of the film is a world away from the idea that was the genesis for the film – and away from the early shooting that was completed.

~ by samofthetenthousandthings on June 22, 2011.