paper revision

Ziwei Ma

ENWR 1510

09/08/2019

In the Mood for Love: Artistic Charm

Under the western movie media scrutiny, In the Mood for Love is Kar-Wai Wong‘s one of the most representative movies. It carries a light sad romance with oriental charm of ritualized aesthetic performance. The story itself is ordinary about extramarital love affair. As for the plot of the film, it is simple and clean. However, Kar-Wai Wong uses unique artistic techniques of expression to give a profound connotation to the theme, and makes the film have a perfect balance between the form and the content.

First, the movie builds a sense of implicit beauty successfully. Wong uses metaphor and symbol expression, which makes the film become implicit and profound on the expression of theme. Based on the symbolism, the film is not only about the love affair between Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan, but also represents an epitome of the society, and the traditional moral concept. As a good film, Wong does not tell the audience the theme, instead, he hides the theme into the details that he relies on the audience to feel the theme. Wong uses metaphorical montage to hint the reality under 60’s Hong Kong, which promotes the film art value.

There are many images such as phonograph, the cheongsam, rain, street lamps, and the clock that are symbol expressions by the director. The phonograph is the mark of the era by recording the voice and memories under the 60’s Hong Kong. Instead of using protagonist’s language, the phonograph rings appropriately to advance the plot several times. One of the most eye-catching parts is Mrs. Chan’s cheongsam. More than 20 cheongsams fully display the oriental classical beauty. Wong emphasized Mrs. Chan’s psychological changes into the cheongsams. For example, when Mrs. Chan watches her husband playing mahjong at Mrs.Suen’s room, or when Mrs. Chan shows the rice cookers to her neighbors, Mrs. Chan normally wears in plain colors. These colors are Mrs. Chan usually likes to wear. Moreover, these clean colors are coordinated with the film’s tonal darkness. Nevertheless, Mrs. Chan is in dark color to get noodles lonely, which represents her solitude and sadness. In addition, when Mrs. Chan goes to Mr. Chow’s room, she wears in light yellow that symbolisms happiness and sweetness. Furthermore, when Mrs. Chan finally decides to go with Mr. Chow, she wears in light green to the hotel that the green color represents vitality, the symbol of a new life. The falling rain has a good effect to foil the atmosphere. The protagonist’s mood is broke out in the rain, but it goes back to calmness after the rain. The dominate tone of the film is darkness, which makes subjects appear in thick, dark, and depressive expressions. The color emphasizes that the audience might anticipate a state of sorrow. The light was showed in the film several times, which can be represented as Mrs. Chan’s lonely heart. Light is the indispensable background in the film, it is always sent out melancholy temperament of darkness. The wall clock is also filled of metaphorical meaning, which symbolisms that the time flies with years of relentless. In the movie, there seems not having superfluous images. Every picture has a meaning in the film. Wong does not miss every detail to express the subject of the film.

Wong successfully uses a ‘dislocation’ method to weave plots into a story. In 1962, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan go to rent a room one after another; in 1966, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan walk back to the apartment one after another, but they do not meet each other. This is a time dislocation. In 1962, they move in on the same day, and lot of furniture is moved to the opposite side by mistakes. This is an item dislocation. Mr. Chan gives both Mrs. Chan and Mrs. Chow the same bag, and Mrs. Chow gives Mr. Chow and Mr. Chan the same tie. This is a gift dislocation. When Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan sit in the restaurant, they ask each other what their husband or wife like to eat. The spicy sauce and ketchup represent a taste dislocation. All of these dislocations seem like the message from Wong to convey that their accidental meeting is doomed to be an inevitable separation. Everything seems like a mistake, which symbolism again the sadness about their love. Moreover, Wong uses the supporting roles to expand the story to a larger view. For example, Mrs.Suen persuade Mrs. Chan to adjust her position correctly as a wife, which represents the society gives Mrs. Chan pressure that based on moral concept, she should be a good wife all the time. Another example is that Mr.Ho is between his wife and his mistress all the time, which is a message from Wong that the whole 60’s Hong Kong society is under the similar situation. Wong uses this love story to symbolize the society.

Second, the plots are highly simplified by the director. The film does not have ups and downs from the beginning to the end. The plots are simple and clean. The beginning of the film is interesting. After the plot of renting the rooms, the camera directly transits to the plot of moving in. No other plots show in the middle at all. The moving-in plot of Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow is carried out at the same time. Here, Wong adopts a parallel montage method, interspersed with the scene of two people. Such a quick transition although sometimes may bring certain difficulty to the audience's understanding of the plot, it has a positive effect of the performance which strengthens and highlights the theme successfully. In the film, Wong does not spend any time on how Mr. Chan and Mrs. Chow start their affair. Moreover, Wong even does not give any front-facing camera on them. It can be viewed as a camera omission that Wong almost omits all other story lines. The whole film skips some transitional plots and only remains the main plots, which highlight the theme strongly and leave infinite imaginary spaces to the audience. It makes the audience aftertaste the film about the intention.

Third, the soundtrack also has an appropriate cooperation with the film plots. Theme music Yumeji’s Theme is working for the images to not only emphasize the love between Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan, but also show out 60’s Hong Kong’s picture. Moreover, Wong uses slow-motion camera to make the music rhythm matches the characters’ actions. For example, the soundtrack Quizás, Quizás, Quizás is a famous Spanish song translated as Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. When Mr. Chow asks Mrs. Chan if she would like to go with her if there is an extra ticket, Mrs. Chan does not say any word. For Mr. Chow, it is a silent way to refuse. However, the audience can hear the lyrics Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, which highlights the ambivalence in Mrs. Chan’s heart. Although music from In the Mood for Love is not particular for the film itself, those soundtracks fit into the film with a unique and rare temperament.

In conclusion, Kar-Wai Wong uses a new point of view to shape a simple story. It successfully shows the contradiction between the moral and emotional, the conflict between traditional culture and colonialist culture. The love between Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan gives the audience a direct feeling about the relationship among human-needs, social responsibility and moral concept. It makes the audience feel regretful helpless. Indeed, the oriental classical beauty is filled into the film. It makes every plot beautiful and meaningful. Kar-Wai Wong portrays a traditional oriental beauty by costumes, music, and camera under his unique perspective.

Work Cited

In the Mood for Love. Dir. Wong Kar-Wai. Janus Films (The Criterion Collection), 2000. Kanopy. Web. 7 Sep. 2019.