There is something enthralling about fairy tales — not only those “Once upon a time” stories that revolve around princes and princesses, but also the ordinary ones whose happy endings wrap up just as neatly. And many of us like to tell our personal stories that way, too — playing the lovable protagonist and emerging victorious at the end of it all.
(But don’t worry, this story is not about me).
It’s about Wong Kar Wai’s 2000 film, “In the Mood for Love.” What sets this film apart from other love stories is that its narrative arc is a far cry from the traditional fairy tale that dominates the genre of romance. Set in 1960s Hong Kong, Wong’s romantic drama tells an ever-so-prescient tale of lingering pain and moments of reprise that seem to distort time.
The film’s protagonists, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow, are two tenants of an apartment complex. They both happen to move into the city on the same day, crossing paths many times thereafter before discovering that their spouses are cheating on them with each other.
“In the Mood for Love” is as heartbreaking as it is romantic. Instead of the grand gestures that stand front and center in most other romantic dramas, “In the Mood for Love” uses narrow and partially obstructed framing to make the viewer feel like an observer who is almost not supposed to even be there. From corridors to clocks, Wong uses foreground obstructions to capture the subtle moments of a story that are often overshadowed by grander ones.
In the only scene that features Mr. Chow, Mrs. Chan and their spouses together in the same shot, a woman walks into frame and through the dining room doorway, scooting past Mrs. Chan and a man who has his back turned to the camera. It’s not until Mr. Chow emerges into frame and walks out the same door that the viewer realizes that the woman who walked in was his wife, and the man next to Mrs. Chan was her husband. Paired with “Yumeji’s Theme,” the iconic melody that saturates most of the slow-motion shots in the film, this moment in passing is beautifully prolonged to foreshadow the forbidden interchange between the Chows and the Chans, whereas, to everyone else in that dining room, it meant nothing.
The film presents plenty of scenes like this, which capture fleeting moments. In fact, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan only encounter one another through glances and brief serendipitous exchanges until they decide to sit down for coffee 28 minutes into the film. Nonetheless, Wong Kar Wai’s genius shines through these subtle scenes more so than the explicit ones.
After watching the film’s trailer for the first time, I was struck by its unconventional style: Instead of pushing onto the viewer a clear plot, the three-minute video strung together a series of dialogue-less cinematic shots to set the scene. As these elements prevail throughout the film itself, it’s unlikely that the trailer’s structure was chosen by coincidence.
According to CrashCourse’s video analysis in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios, “[Wong] achieves [his] voice by working in a very unusual way: He often goes off script and follows inspiration as it strikes, sometimes changing the nature of a film in the middle of a shoot.”
It’s this spontaneous style of filmmaking that allows Wong to weave together so many little moments into the understated narrative that comprises “In the Mood for Love.” Rather than relying on dialogue to drive exposition, Wong lets his cinematography speak for itself, challenging viewers to piece together the plot on their own.
In addition to the fleeting nature of Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan’s budding connection, Wong also captures the impermanence of 1960s Hong Kong. Although I am not from Hong Kong myself, I could tell — early in the film — that the region was more than an arbitrary backdrop to the story.
The film begins in 1962, a stable yet bustling time for Hong Kong. This is reflected in Wong’s depiction of multiple households moving in and out of the apartment complex where the film starts off. A British colony at the time, Hong Kong was a hub for travel and business. Wong reinforces this atmosphere through the frequent business trips that Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan’s spouses disappear on throughout the film.
At the end of the film, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan returned to their old apartment building — barely missing each other — only to discover that many of the residents had already fled the city due to growing instability in China. At the time (1966), the Chinese Cultural Revolution had just begun, marking a ten-year period of sociopolitical unrest in China.
Brian Bernards, a USC professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, spoke to Annenberg Media on the climate in Hong Kong at the time.
Having seen many of Wong Kar Wai’s films himself, Bernards noted a sense of imminent disappearance among them. He explained how “In the Mood for Love” reflects that through the city of Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong is a port that’s facilitating movement. It’s not necessarily a place with roots... And Hong Kong is also a city — historically — of refugees, of people who have taken refuge from other large conflicts there,” Bernards said. “So, for example, the Chinese Civil War, as well as the Japanese occupation before that, is the reason you that have so many Shanghainese that relocated to Hong Kong,” said Bernards.
As a Chinese American whose parents are from Shanghai, I was surprised to recognize small bits of the film’s dialogue uttered in Shanghainese, a dialect I hadn’t heard since childhood.
This cultural reminiscence is one of many facets in the film that made me nostalgic for something I had barely experienced. Wong Kar Wai’s masterpiece tells a specific story about the pangs of infidelity and longing but evokes in us emotions that anyone can relate to. At its core, “In the Mood for Love” is an examination of the fleeting yet ubiquitous moments that sit beneath the lofty fairy tales we like to tell.