In the Mood for Love (2001, dir. Wong Kar Wai)
This movie hits right before the American reinvigoration in fifties and sixties domesticity, and I think it hits harder. Largely because the scene is the important unit here. Not the overall movie. Each scene has a crushing purpose that plays out in a slight, common manner. Of course when strung together there’s inter-relation, and a narrative bubbles up, but it didn’t have to be that way. And if you excise just one, it plays independently of everything else. That’s how the dramas in real life play out: one discreet action at a time.
But even in the seeming conservative nature of so much, the dedication to the time and the period and the spirit, the camera and the action do their job of differentiating themselves from real life. It is all play and make believe, so why not actually play with the make believe that’s going on? That’s what’s so good about their “roleplays.” It’s just an alternate film reality. But there’s no saying which is more important, or which is more real. That’s something I think Tsai Ming Liang does really well now, too, while Wong Kar Wai is busy playing around with My Blueberry Nights. Which I still love.
The only real things are the patterns on those dresses.
In the Mood for Love (2001, dir. Wong Kar Wai)
This movie hits right before the American reinvigoration in fifties and sixties domesticity, and I think it hits harder. Largely because the scene is the important unit here. Not the overall movie. Each scene has a crushing purpose that plays out in a slight, common manner. Of course when strung together there’s inter-relation, and a narrative bubbles up, but it didn’t have to be that way. And if you excise just one, it plays independently of everything else. That’s how the dramas in real life play out: one discreet action at a time.
But even in the seeming conservative nature of so much, the dedication to the time and the period and the spirit, the camera and the action do their job of differentiating themselves from real life. It is all play and make believe, so why not actually play with the make believe that’s going on? That’s what’s so good about their “roleplays.” It’s just an alternate film reality. But there’s no saying which is more important, or which is more real. That’s something I think Tsai Ming Liang does really well now, too, while Wong Kar Wai is busy playing around with My Blueberry Nights. Which I still love.
The only real things are the patterns on those dresses.
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