In the Mood for Love (Archive)

21:59Josh Larsen:I want to jump back to the filmmaking and just talk about some of these pure mood moments that we get in this film where I'm afraid by my talking about this being a more reserved movie for someone who hasn't seen it. They might think it's more conventional than his other pictures. And it's absolutely not. Like this is, this is pure Wong Kar Wai because we get these mood moments, including the montage of them passing each other on the way to the noodle stall. Maybe my favorite sequences in the film, it's something that is recurring. It kind of at first shows us their loneliness. They're going out to get dinner because they are not going to cook it for someone else.

22:40Josh Larsen:There's no one else home. They're each in this situation and they pass each other a handful of times. And this is where the slow motion comes into play. This is where that theme music, the Shigeru Umbayashi's Yumeji's theme comes into play. And even that is interesting. You know how it has these lilting violins to it. It's somewhat similar to the tango music we heard in Happy Together. But also it seems like even a step back from that in terms of its pace and its rhythm. And it's just the slow motion in here is also very judicious. Sometimes it's raining when they're doing this. That adds another level to it.

23:22Josh Larsen:And I could have watched them go back and forth to get their noodles for the entire running time of this movie. Just for the little variations each time in where the camera is. How much lighting is allowed in that stairway so that they can not really see each other's faces the next time maybe they do see each other's faces a little bit more. And it's all these imperceptible changes that are so important. and that is where the emotional element of this just hits me the hardest. It's like you're watching these two halves of a broken heart throb when they pass each other and it captures everything that you need to know about where they are at in that moment and it carries through past where they even go together so that that's what their time together was, passing each other on those stairways, even if they do end up becoming a little closer later.

24:15Adam Kempenaar:I mentioned the veiling technique with the spouses. Everything is so secretive here. And Wong has so much fun, I would say, with that tension. As I was jotting down some notes, when I noticed this the first maybe one or two times, I posed a question to myself. Josh, you're an expert, film critic and note taker. Do you sometimes just write questions to yourself that you know you need to return to? You don't know the answer to, but you know you need to return to them? Yeah, sure, sure. So I wrote down, why does the camera hide? Oh, I love that. I love that touch. It's always down a hall, right? Yeah, as you keep watching the film, you realize even the camera in In the Mood for Love has to steal glances.

24:59Adam Kempenaar:The view is always through a reflection in a mirror, or it's under the table, or it's through a window, or it's through a curtain, or it's through a curtain of smoke. Talk about a movie that makes smoking look so glamorous. The way Christopher Doyle's camera captures that haze is really pretty magnificent. And just in general, how many times do we see them obscured? To go back to your point, too, about the lighting. And as they pass each other, it's as if you are eavesdropping on them. It's as if you are there in the hallway, that cramped hallway. Again, it's Wong relying on a very close technique, not a lot of master shots, though.

25:43Adam Kempenaar:Of course, when we get on the street and there are some elements to the production design where we do kind of take in the expanse of the scene. But especially when they're indoors, when they're in those apartment settings, when they're moving in together, he's really emphasizing how close they are. You're always seeing them in a medium shot or medium close up or a close up. So that eavesdropping sort of effect adds to that tension. But then how about this? I'm going to ask you a question here, Josh. And I think the fact that there maybe isn't one answer or one go-to answer for 100 people you pose this question to helps signify just how special this movie is.

26:24Adam Kempenaar:But if I asked you, let's skip romantic gestures for now. We're going to get to that eventually, and there are multiple in this film, and there's one really amazing one that did, in fact, make your top five from this movie back in 2013. But when we do talk about eroticism, something close to sexiness, true sultry sexiness in this film, something that actually kind of radiates some real intensity. Do you have a moment like that from this movie?

27:01Josh Larsen:that one that i jotted down so um my three seconds response is maybe a strange one but how about when he says um then i'll spend some time with you here then i'll wait it out here when they she is caught in the rain in the alley under a light doesn't want to get that dress wet which i completely understand so she's kind of you know under an awning and he comes it's kind of that whole sequence, actually. He's coming from another direction, sees her. He's running in his suit in the rain, ducks under the awning next to her, offers his jacket to her. She says, we can't go in together. Or if they see your jacket, they'll know.

27:42Josh Larsen:He runs and gets an umbrella, brings it back. She says, I can't take your umbrella. So after all these romantic gestures, he finally just says, and I wish I could remember the words, but then I'll just be here with you and leans back against the wall. And I love the next beat, silence. They don't say anything to each other. And they just, that to me, I don't know why, is like incredibly sexy. They're just completely comfortable sitting there together.

28:10Adam Kempenaar:Silence is sexy for Josh Larson. There you go.

28:12Josh Larsen:What did you say? I think you just mischaracterized. Silence is sexy. Well, I just think it's, yeah, I don't know why. There's just something about that shared moment that they have together where nothing else needs to be said. Okay, well, I'm going to give you mine.

28:25Adam Kempenaar:Okay. I think it's during the dinner that is really their first true role-playing excursion, kind of a date, where they are taking on the characters of their spouses or the other spouse. and there's a moment where we see and the camera really does emphasize it because it cuts to as i recall cuts to tony leung's hand as he grabs what i think is probably some hot mustard and then it follows him as he puts it on her plate now even before this i'll just mention when we're talking about technique this is a movie where the camera is mostly pretty still we've talked about how restrained overall the I know where you're going is I love this camera move yeah but then all of a sudden just in this scene there's a couple quick pans yeah between them it's almost like a slide

29:19Josh Larsen:right it slides like from behind them right up next to them which is exactly as you're saying

29:24Adam Kempenaar:like very ostentatious compared to what we've been getting but I think it it helps just add some electricity yes to a scene in a moment that seems like it otherwise might be fairly I don't no harmless. And then we get that moment when he he dabs the mustard on her plate and you see her consider it. And just in that consideration in her silence, I think it's pretty clear to us that this isn't maybe something that she would normally eat. She clearly didn't grab it on her own and put it on her plate to eat with whatever she's eating. But he has put it on her plate for her and she hesitates. And then what does she do?

30:05Adam Kempenaar:She dips her entree into it and then eats it as voraciously as Maggie Chung does anything voraciously in this movie. But I swear to you, Josh, at the exact moment I'm thinking to myself, wow, that was hot. He says, do you like it hot? And let's be clear, Tony Leung is not Roger Moore. I don't know that there's any double entendre intended. There's nothing winking about his performance. He doesn't need double entendres. No, he really doesn't, right? I mean, he's a walking double entendre. But maybe the English translation even is sort of misleading because that's not really what he's saying. Or maybe Wong is winking at us there in that moment, even if Leung isn't.

30:51Adam Kempenaar:But he asks her, do you like it hot in the subtitle? And I'm telling you, in that moment, before he even said it, I really was responding to how charged that scene was. I could give you the play-by-play and really make my point, but I think, Josh, it would make you blush. And I don't want to embarrass you here on the show. But it is undeniably sexual. It's undeniably sexual because it's about power. He doesn't ask. He puts it on her plate. He makes the move to put it on her plate to basically suggest that he wants her to try that, to eat it, and she does. She submits to it. it's a pretty incredible scene.

31:33Josh Larsen:I'm so glad you asked this question because it clarified another important distinction between us, Adam. I prefer quiet intimacy and you like dirty talk. So I'm glad we know this now and hot mustard.

31:46Adam Kempenaar:I thought you were actually gonna put it in this way that I just realized my epiphany was, you find silence sexy, I find food sexy.

31:56Josh Larsen:Well, yeah, it kind of has a mixture of dirty talk and food. So I think with that, we should move on for everyone's sakes. So let's go to something. He's been read, everybody. I can see him. Let's go to something far less sexy and talk about politics because it's something you brought up. I forget if it was with happy. Charles did all. Very sexy. Totally. Happy Together, maybe you brought this up. And I don't have an answer, but I have. It was in the back of my mind since you touched on it. And I have like just an inkling from watching this film and where it ends up. You know, we have this sequence a couple of years later.

32:31Josh Larsen:I think we're about 66 now. And the politics kind of come into play in some oblique ways, I think. Though it is interesting before this last sequence, Adam, you get that comment. I think it's when we're back at the apartment building a couple of years later. It might be like 64 at that point. And a new resident, I think, says people are leaving Hong Kong because things have gotten, quote, too chaotic. So that's kind of like a little hint of some instability. But this sequence is in Cambodia at the end, 1966. And, yeah, we get this newsreel footage. All of a sudden, I guess to set, you know, at first I'm like, OK, this is setting the time and place.

33:11Josh Larsen:But it's this parade, I think, with the prince and princess and French president Charles de Gaulle. And so I'm thinking, okay, this is 66, did just some brief, very brief research, but it looks like that would have been just before the Vietnam War kind of destabilized Cambodia and spread into Cambodia. Then we get that final sequence in Angkor Wat, where we're just with Mr. Chao Leung. And he is, maybe I don't want to spoil all of it, but this is the romantic gesture. But he's basically wandering the ruined ancient temple complex there. So a lost civilization that is no longer, it's basically something that tourists go to visit at this point.

33:56Josh Larsen:And so I'm realizing that, you know, all of these things are suggestions of not only like territories that are being destabilized in Hong Kong, countries in Cambodia, and then an entire civilization that has failed to last. And I'm just thinking of, you know, how could he have expected that this relationship, first of all, his own marriage to last, then this relationship to last when like these massive civilizations crumble in the face of what? A Wong obsession, time. All of these things are suggestions of time bearing down. Things are about to change the way that things always change. And instability is the only constant.

34:42Josh Larsen:And as we've seen, unhappiness because of that is often the only constant. constant. So that's just kind of a vague stab at maybe some of the political tie-ins. I know it doesn't get into any of the details of the realities of Hong Kong during this era or later. You know, eventually, what, 30 years later, would have been transferred from colonial rule to China. But maybe that's something. Yeah.

35:09Adam Kempenaar:I think you've said it very well. I think there's always a sense, at least in these six films that we've watched of destabilization looming. It's always there. And sometimes it is more direct. Sometimes it's a little more oblique. Here, it is interesting. That moment when all of a sudden we cut to newsreel footage is so jarring compared to everything we've seen before. This mood piece where we are just enveloped in this world and these dresses and the production design that we've touched on. And then all of a sudden, we're watching Charles de Gaulle. It's like we've all of a sudden been thrust into the real world and we've been in a fantasy up until this point.

35:53Adam Kempenaar:It reminded me actually, in a way, in a completely different way, but it took me out of the moment in the same sort of fascinating way that the end of Kirastami's Taste of Cherry, where all of a sudden we get some home movie footage. And if I'm remembering correctly, we see Kirastami himself like making the movie that we just watched. So again, very different, But in some ways, for me, a similar effect where you are taken out of this kind of hypnotic reverie with this movie and reminded that, oh, all of this is happening in a real world, a much larger world where they're just one kind of tiny speck in the universe.

36:33Adam Kempenaar:And that, of course, I think does set up ultimately the grandness of that romantic gesture. So maybe that is a nice way to get back to the question you posed. And I don't know if we want to go ahead and throw out that if people want to not have In the Mood for Love further spoiled, they could stop listening at this point. But Warner West, I believe Warner West in Atlanta. He's in the ATL, Josh. What's his question? What's his query?

36:58Josh Larsen:Yeah, so again, this is on Letterboxd. He said that In the Mood for Love is likely my favorite Wong Kar-wai film. I was interested in the film's spotting team's take on the ending. I believe I got the same interpretation as you in my several watches, but I know others interpret their relationship differently, particularly in regards to who we see with Maggie Cheung in her final scene. so um i did not respond to him yet so i'm just kind of guessing what he's hinting at but um towards the end is where we see her return to rent an apartment in the same complex where they were years earlier and she has a child with her um so i'm wondering if what warner is suggesting i haven't read others takes but that this may be mr chow's child that they did in fact consummate The relationship, at some point, there is a scene where they, the role playing, they even go to a hotel where they believe their respective spouses have been meeting.

37:53Josh Larsen:And we don't see anything, but they're there. There's a room there. So it could have been something that happened off screen and resulted in this child that he doesn't know about, right? Because he happens to be visiting either at the same time or a few scenes later, stops in front of the door, thinks about knocking, but doesn't. It's another just great Wong Kar Wai-like, you know, time shifting in just the wrong way moment. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely considered this as I was watching is like, you know, have we just not seen them take that step? I like to think, Adam, for the reasons we've been talking about, that it's in keeping with all of the other films he has made that they would not have.

38:41Josh Larsen:And that retains it's not even really the moral question as much as the the auteurist question. You know, it retains the auteurist integrity of his filmography. But I can totally see that reading. And that, in fact, would add another layer of melancholy and sadness if he did not only miss on reuniting with her, but his child potentially. But I don't know. Where did you kind of come down on that?

39:09Adam Kempenaar:Well, I think anybody watching, no matter the experience you're having with the film or how you're interpreting it up to that point, I think that moment where you realize that she no longer seems to have a husband but does have a child, you do instantly wonder. I mean, we've seen this trope a million times in other movies, right, where a couple that had a fling, they separate and, oh, they had a child and the man doesn't know about it but eventually does discover the news. for me I just can't I can't abide that reading of the film I think it's it's too it's too in conflict with everything we've expressed everything we've seen in this marathon you're right that it does add another layer of melancholy which would seem appropriate so you could you could go with that argument.

40:03Adam Kempenaar:But for me, the idea that they ever did actually act like their spouses, that they gave in, in a way, maybe it makes them more human. But I don't think that's what Wong Kar Wai is really interested in here. I think he's interested in the provocation of these people and the philosophical kind of consequences, the existential consequences of them making that decision and sticking to it. We won't be like them. So I think my reading is the one where she has at some point separated from her husband or perhaps he's passed. She did get a child from that marriage and that you imagine allows her to be a little less alone in life, but it doesn't have to be Mr.

40:53Adam Kempenaar:Chow's kid.

40:55Josh Larsen:I'm glad, you know, we may not add, we may not agree on hot mustard as a sex toy, but I'm glad we agree on the ending of in the mood for love.

41:14Adam Kempenaar:remember you can access the full film spotting archive going back to 2005 by being a film spotting family member you get bonus shows a weekly newsletter and more learn more at filmspottingfamily.com

41:36Adam Kempenaar:film spotting is listener supported join the film spotting family at film spotting family.com and get access to ad free episodes monthly bonus shows our weekly newsletter and for the first time all in one place the entire film spotting archive going back to 2005 that's a film spotting family.com.

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