IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Followed by Q&A with Mark Lee Ping-Bing. Moderator Tara Brady, The Irish Times. Reception afterwards.
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
98 minutes. Hong Kong, China. 2000.
Subtitled. Colour. 35mm.
Screened with the support of Jet Tone Films.
A masterwork of cinematic atmosphere, Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love is set in 1962 and depicts the intersecting lives of Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung), two neighbours who learn over time that their spouses are having an affair. Their lonely existence develops into an unconsummated passion that persists through its characters’ travels to Singapore, the Philippines, and the ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. The film’s aura of nostalgia is heightened by the appearance (and vocals) of landlady, Mrs. Chan, played by the Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-based actress and singer, Rebecca Pan. Suffused with longing, In the Mood for Love is a paean to a Hong Kong of the past and a love that might have been.
(Notes Dr Su-Anne Yeo, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, BC.)
