In The Mood For Love

Normally I'm very focused on watching movies i haven't seen before. The two main reasons for this are that i feel like i developed an appreciation for cinema later in life than most, and therefore have ground to make up, as well as having a large film collection that includes a lot of movies I've yet to watch.

Last night however i was worn from a long week of work and just wanted to enjoy something beautiful and perfect. The first thing i thought of was Wong Kar-wai's In The Mood For Love, a film I could never see too many times. Kar-wai manged to take a 15 month shoot utilizing 2 different cinematographers (Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bin) and make one of most beautiful visual films. It doesn't hurt that he had two of the best and most visually appealing actors in the world to work with (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung), along with the vintage allure of 1960's Hong Kong, which sometimes feels like it's own character in the film (much like Tokyo in Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation).

If you want to get a sense of the style of film (although the poster is a great start), check out this great blog that chronicles Maggie's dresses throughout the film. As someone who is not generally interested in fashion, i still find myself mesmerized seeing dress after dress in the film as it progresses.

The film unfolds like a visual love letter to the 1960's Hong Kong. The plot unfolds in layered bursts of moments sometimes seemingly unconnected portions of dialogue and interaction, intermingled with lush slow motion shots of interiors or street level Hong Kong as the characters pass through. The nontraditional love story that unfolds as the film progresses is what you take from the experience of watching of the film, but the visuals and the amazing attention to detail with every shot are what cause this story to embed itself in your head.

The film is also the 2nd film of a trilogy of sorts (Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild is the first, and 2046 being the 3rd), but the film is not only the best of three, but can be well enjoyed even if you never seek out the other two. It goes without saying that i recommend this film, as it's one of my all time favorites. It's available readily in the US from The Criterion Collection on both Blu-ray and DVD. Feel free to let me know what you think if you check it out. I'll surely be mentioning it again in these parts.