film

The masterful Wong Kar-wai made In the Mood for Love in 1999, just after turning 40 – an impressively young age at which to produce something of such texture, nuance and assurance. A richly atmospheric romantic drama set in 1960s Hong Kong, it follows two neighbours, played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai (who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance) and Maggie Cheung, who discover their spouses are having an affair. As they confront betrayal, they form a restrained emotional bond, largely shaped and expressed by what is left unsaid. Wong’s meticulous framing, elegant pacing and lush use of colour turn corridors, stairwells and hotel rooms into spaces of longing but also repression.

The film is as much about missed chances and the ache of desire deferred as it is about intimacy. Its hypnotic score, by the Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi, and repeated motifs of passing in narrow spaces create a sense of time looping back on itself. Rather than consummation, it finds beauty in restraint.