Lecture 8 - In The Mood For Love

A. Introduction

Like Chungking Express, In The Mood For Love is concerned with the following three broad and inter-related categories:

1. Space and Architecture
2. Time
3. Relationships

A1. Dramatis Personae

A2. Interconnectivity of Wong Kar Wai’s Films

Films contain references to his other works both past and future

E.g.

Hotel room 2046         -> reference to his later film 2046 (2004)
Motif of black coffee   -> similar motif in Chungking Express
Motif of women's shoes  -> similar motif in Chungking Express (The Blonde's heels)
Motif of coincidence    -> similar to first story in Chunking Express
A woman intruding into a man's room

More on the motif of women’s shoes.
More on coincidence.

Intrusion

In both Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love, the scene represents the woman’s indulgence in a fantasy

A3. Elliptical Narrative

The Film is elliptical in nature, featuring numerous gaps and intermissions in time

Reasons:

• Film is told from a retrospective standpoint
• Imperfect memory, gaps in storytelling

Film-making:

• Retrospection suggested by opening shot

    E.g. Camera tracking past photographs -> looking back on the past
  

• Elliptical nature suggested by clocks

B. Space in In The Mood For Love

Featured in empty shots without people

• Transcendence of the current moment, preservation of the past

    E.g.
  
    - Hong Kong 1966 segment ends with longering shot of an empty corridor
    - Film ends with lingering, empty shots of Angkor Wat ruins
  

Film shifts between proximity and distance

• Close-knit community in the apartments
• The distance between Hong Kong and Singapore

B1. Apartments

Claustrophobic, cramped spaces that stifle and restrain Mo Wan and Li Zhen

• Lack of privacy
• Constant sense of being watched and surveillance

    E.g. The Ah Mah know's everybody's schedules
  

• Reflect stifling social context
• See Walls and Corridors motif

B2. Restaurant

• Ambiguity starting to creep in
• Role-playing begins taking place
• Still a public space - things can only go so far

B3. Hotel Room

Supposedly the most private and free space, the most intimate physical and emotional engagement takes place here

• However, fiction-making takes place here
• Thus, the relationship they create here is also a fiction/fantasy

B4. Alleyway

Features the use of the Pathetic Fallacy.

2 possible interpretations:

B4-i. A space revealing one’s true nature

• Here, they flirt with and express more of their truer and more transgressive desires.
• More glimpses of their truer feelings
  • Though the alleyway is ultimately still a space of enclosure (not a liberating space)

B4-ii. A space for role-play

• All 3 alleyway scenes feature role-play
• It is in their role-playing where they can expresses their truer (transgressive) feelings
  • (Interpretation): They act out their adulterous feelings through the role-playing of their spouses

B5. Angkor Wat

• Monuments and ruins
• Related to theme of time, transcendence and preservation (similar to the can motif in Chungking Express)

    E.g. Mo Wan whispers his story into the hole in the wall, in order to preserve it
  

• See Walls and Corridors motif

C. Relationships in In The Mood For Love

On social decorum, restraint and repression.

Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s relationship is characterized by the restraint and repression of their desires

C1. Restriction by Social Context

One cause is restriction and regulation by the external social context

E.g. Li Zhen is reprimanded by Mrs Suen

• Society represented by the close-knit community of Mrs Suen and Mr Koo
  • Warm, intimate, yet stifling community
  • Filled with gossip
• The characters have to obey social rules, and adhere to social decorum, propriety and etiquette
• Reinforced by use of costume
• Reinforced by use of slow camera movement

C2. Self-restriction

More significantly, beyond social rules and decorum, Mo Wan and Li Zhen themselves restrain and restrict themselves

• They find it hard to admit their feelings for each other
• Their conversations are proper and refined
  • Only express interest in each other indirectly

    E.g.
    
    - Li Zhen makes sesame syrup for Mo Wan
    - Mo Wan invites Li Zhen to help him write his martial arts novels
    

• Their interactions are indirect, with a sense of restraint and denial

"We know it's not true, so why worry" - Li Zhen

• Even at this late stage, she is in denial
• Yet she breaks down when they rehearse their separation
  • In the role-play, she is free to express her sadness

Indirectness reinforced by the elliptical narrative

• One needs to read the small signs and clues to figure out the actual situation
• Results in ambiguity and possibility - Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Self-restraint characterized by the Waltz motif

C3. Lack of Closure

Their desire remains unconsummated and does not reach a closure. Paradoxically, to fulfill this desire is to bring it to an end.

Open-ended and unresolved relationship becomes transcendent.

E.g. When Mo Wan whispers his secret relationship into the hole in the Angkor Wat temple

By leaving the relationship unfulfilled will allow it to remain in the realm of the imaginary, where it can continue into eternity

C4. Side Characters

C4-i. The Cheating Spouses

• The spouses are a contrast to Mo Wan and Li Zhen
  • Less restrained and refined, more brash and heedless

    E.g.
    
    - Mrs Chow is more modern, heedless of social decorum
    - Mrs Chow wears a western dress, has western hairdo, like spicy food (mustard)
    - Mr Chan slurps soup loudly
    

    

• Mo Wan and Li Zhen are more suited to each other, similarly for the spouses

C4-ii. Ah Ping

• Character foil to Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s restraint
• He acts out his desires by going to brothels

C5. Use of film-making

Even as Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s feelings are repressed, they are intensely felt and are displaced onto the mise-en-scene

D. Role-playing in In The Mood For Love

The act of role-play begins as a means for Mo Wan and Li Zhen to discover how the affair started.

D1. Blurring of Identities

It becomes unclear who they are acting as during the role-play: their spouses, or themselves.

E.g. When Mo Wan attempts to touch Li Zhen's hand -> role-play bleeding into reality

D2. Discovery of Desire

It is only through role-playing that they begin to discover/realize their desire for each other.

• Role-playing provides an imaginary realm in which they can express and act out their adulterous feelings for each other
• In the film, there is not only physical space but imaginary space

D3. Role-play and Denial

Later on, they use their role-playing as their spouses to avoid facing their own feelings directly.

• (Interpretation): They conduct their adultery through their adulterous spouses
• (Interpretation): Their relationship existed largely in the realm of role-playing
  • Use of role-play to explore not only their spouses, but themselves as well

E. Time in In The Mood For Love

E1. Retrospection

The film implies an act of retrospection—looking back in time, a flashback.

• Memory is flawed, film containes gaps and visual obstructions
• Nevertheless, some items are vividly remembered

E.g. Wisp of cigarette smoke

• Results in tension between vividness and obscurity of recall

E2. Changes wrought by time

• In The Mood For Love is a film that makes us aware of time
• Clearest at the end in the shifts from 1962 to 1963 to 1966

Broad strokes

E.g.

- Rapid changes in Mrws Suen's close-knit community
- "That era has passed. Nothing belonging to it exists anymore" - intertitle

Subtle, creeping changes

• In the changes in Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s relationship

E3. Transcendence and Angkor Wat

• Angkor Wat: allusion to a bygone era
• Viewer invited to construct parallels between the ruins of Angkor Wat and the story of Mo Wan and Li Zhen in Hong Kong
  • Hallways and corridors
  • Storied walls
  • Architecture remaining after all characters have ceased to exist
  • Unspoken relationships remembered by the walls and ruins
• Metaphor for history
  • Makes one think of the larger question of history and the past
  • History presetns public records of events, but what of unspoken stories not recorded?

The luminous, radiant Hong Kong life we have seen will one day - or has it already - disintegrate into ruins similar to the Angkor Wat.

The stone and rocks suggest both timeless preservation and eventual decay.

F. Film-making in In The Mood For Love

F1. Motifs

F1-i. Women’s shoes

• Focus on Li Zhen’s pink slippers and Mrs Chow’s heels

E.g. Li Zhen wears Mrs Chow's heels as she leaves Mo Wan's room

• Li Zhen begins to take the place of Mrs Chow
• Note that she kicks off the heels in pain, suggests discomfort with being in the role

E.g. Later in the Singapore scene, Li Zhen takes back her slippers

• An indirect message about her final attitude/decision on the relationship

F1-ii. Coincidence

E.g.

- Both move into the apartment on the same day
- Their spouses have an affair with one another

F1-iii. Black Coffee

E.g. Li Zhen making coffee for her boss -> undercurrent of sadness

Similar to Chungking Express where 633 broods on his ex

F1-iv. Walls and Corridors

Richly textured with the memories of their inhabitants

F1-iv. The Waltz

• “Yumeji’s Theme” (Shigeru Umebayashi): a waltz that plays repeatedly during the film
• Represents a “to-ing” and “fro-ing” in Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s relationship and self-restraint

E.g.

- Mo Wan calls Li Zhen, Li Zhen calls Mo Wan (in Singapore)
- Li Zhen's phantom visit to Singapore
- Li Zhen doesn't pick up Mo Wan's call, then rushes to the hotel room after he has left
- Mo Wan visits the apartment in 1966, suspects the woman next door could be Li Zhen, but doesn't knock

The relationship:

• Is drawn out over time
• Never reaches a state of consummation or resolution

F1-v. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

• “Quizas, Quizas, Quizas” (Nat King Cole)
• Opens questions about the result of Mo Wan and Li Zhen’s relationship
  • Was it consummated?
  • Whose child is the little boy’s?
• Also reflects Waltz Motif

F2. Mise-en-scene

The film’s use of mise-en-scene helps to convey the elliptical nature of the narrative.

F2-i. Photographs

E.g. Camera tracking past photographs -> looking back on the past

F2-ii. Clocks

Clocks have no second hand

• Suggests that time passes invisibly, subtly and delicately

"Feelings can creep up just like that" - Mo Wan

F2-iii. Costumes

• Li Zhen spends most of the film in gorgeous, decorative cheongsams
  • High collar: suggests restriction and social conformity
  • Wearing a cheongsam requires an upright posture and manner
  • Vibrant colors belie repressed feelings
• In the bathroom scene, she is undressed and crying
  • Suggests when outside social context in a private space, we finally see the true self

F2-iv. Pathetic Fallacy through Mise-en-scene

Pathetic Fallacy: Where nature or objects reflect the inner feelings of the humans

E.g. The slow-mo scene where Mo Wan and Li Zhen go to buy noodles, it rains heavily

- Reflects their inner state of mind

F2-v. Colors

The lush, gorgeous colors and designs of the mise-en-scene are hints of inner intense feelings

Scresms with the intensity of the repressed emotions

E.g. Film's credit sequence in red to signify intense feelings

F3. Cinematography

F3-i. Camera Movement

Characterized by slow, tracking shots

• Reinforce idea of formal movements that conform to propriety
• Film rarely breaks out of these formal movements
• Exceptions:
  • Jerky, handheld camera movement

    E.g. Whip-like camera movement during Mo Wan and Li Zhen's first dinner scene
    
    - Li Zhen plucks up the courage to ask Mo Wan a more direct question about their spouses
    

F3-ii. Slow Motion

• Used in conjunction with the slow, formal camera movement
• Reinforces idea of delicate, elegant, formal movements
• Suggests conformity to social etiquette and decorum of the community

F3-iii. Fast Motion