In the Mood for Love: Not in the Mood

Well, let me sin. Not boldly but of necessity. Of course, the sin is not, per se, the mood In the Mood for Love (2000) put me in; rather, it’s in the sharing. But I’ll take the risk. The year ends in a few hours and that, I think, betokens boldness.

I’d seen two Wong Kar-wai films before this go: Chungking Express (1994), seen long enough ago that the only remainder is a blur of colorful images, shot as if on a camcorder, and Happy Together (1997), a serviceable gay romance that left me wanting the bluster of Fassbinder’s fast zooms and garish lighting. As a result, I’d put off In the Mood for Love, for what greater cinematic sin is there than the rejection of a canonical director?

It is with some self-pity that I report a negative result. To be clear, there’s no denying Wong’s mastery. The clothing, color palettes, obscured (Fassbinderian even) shots—it all amounts to genius. The story—of two neighbors whose spouses cheat with another who then dance around their own potential dalliance—ebbs and flows admirably. The spouses’ faces remain obscured. Who cares what they look like? They may as well be phantoms: never home, not the point of the tale.

But then there’s an indulgence that plagues (I want to say Wong’s films; instead,) In the Mood for Love. The didactic intertitles, the on-the-nose ending, the languid pacing—what for? The film’s dreamy, time-bending mood seems the antidote to such sermonizing. And yet, the director-writer couldn’t help himself, I suppose.

These minor transgressions matter little, however, in the grand scheme of things. The bigger issue is simply that my soul never stirred. Unlike during my recent viewing of Yang’s Yi Yi (2000), no tears welled nor fell. “Style over substance” seems a bit strong—the movie has “themes” and occasional narrative bents that kept me invested. In the end, however, I sat stone-faced. Gorgeous, yes. But without fundamental effect.

In the Mood for Love is a movie about restraint. So, who am I to restrain myself from it? Its rejection of big emotions seems perfectly in keeping with its subject matter. While intellectually satisfying, however, this explanation leaves me unconvinced. I didn’t feel myself repressing anxious desire. The film never inculpated me, drew out the uneasy tension of budding romance I’ve known (haven’t we all?). It washed over me. That’s it.

I do wonder if the grand surfaces absent melodrama don’t form part of the issue. Sirk used the conventional, turned up to 1000, to scratch and nick its shiny veneer. His bigness trapped the viewer in a prison of commodities and social conventions, highlighted them to undermine their very necessity. In the Mood for Love goes big so far as the screen is concerned but small so far as emotions are. It’s a quiet storm made of blasting thunder and bright lightning.

But what do I know? I have no desire to take Wong away from anyone, nor do I think I could. I can only report my own response with a shameful whimper. I’m in the mood for, well, another director.