General Discussion of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

Share your general thoughts and reactions to this film here.

Comments

[Lily Miller]

I thought that this was an interesting film. I believe that the minimal dialogue allowed for more emotion to be interpreted. A voice-over or dialogue often influence the interpretation of a film.

[Anna Markee]

I enjoyed In The Mood for Love. However, I didn't like it as much as Chungking Express. Both movies had a reoccurring theme of love and time, a trademark of Wong Kar-wai. I think I liked Chungking Express more than In The Mood For Love because it was more lighthearted and fun. In The Mood For Love was pretty serious and heavy, but it was still enjoyable. I find it interesting how Wong focusses on objects other than the characters face, but still manages to provide viewers with a sense of connection with the characters.

[Josh Noble]

So far I have enjoyed both of Kar-wai's films. I like his expressionistic style and attention to detail. One of my favorite aspects of In the Mood for Love was the pairing of the visuals with the music. The main orchestral theme helps punctuate the important scenes

[Laven Voth]

I really liked his repetition in the music score. With what Josh was saying, it really helps highlight familiar places and shows the patterns of their lives.

I think Wong Kar-Wai, at least in the example-films we've seen so far, have been more visually interesting than the Terrence Malic films. Particularly in In The Mood For Love, there were so many non-standard shots that it felt more suspenseful and engaging to watch. I especially liked the ending, and how it is the most non-traditional (in comparison to Hollywood films) ending. I am a fan of melancholy, realistic themes in films such as this.

[Hope Sneddon]

I enjoyed In the Mood for Love. It was different from Chungking Express in that it wasn't as playful and silly, it seemed more serious. Although, I still feel both films have a bubblegum cinema vibe. In the Mood's use of music as Josh pointed out seemed to contribute to that just like it does in Chungking Express as well. So in that aspect they are similar.

[Lauren Hiland]

I enjoyed this film alot more than I enjoyed the first Wong film we watched. It had much more of a storyline, and a purpose to it. It also kept the same story throughout the whole film. I thought the camera movements, and blurring of characters or parts of charcaters was very interesting. I kind of liked how certain scenes would repeat but the second time something different would happen, and the repeated scenes of the rain or tight allyways.

[Katlyn Sylvia]

I really enjoyed In the Mood for Love. The abstract camera angles made the film feel more 'artsy' and unique. In comparison to Chunking Express, I appreciated the more serious and intense atmosphere that was set up both with the aforementioned camera angles as well as with the score of the film in general. The repetition of the music helped me get into the 'right' frame of mind for each scene, and gave credit to the audience to understand the differences in each shot.

[Amy Elder]

This film definitely caught my attention more than Chungking Express did. It was interesting for me to compare 1960's China with 1960's America. The men dressed similar to how an American man would dress. The women were also similar in that they were always dressed in beautiful dresses with perfect hair and makeup.
I was a little confused by the choice of music in this movie, there was a song sung entirely in Spanish. I also noticed that many of the shots were filmed in a mirror. This is an interesting technique, but I was confused as to its significance.

[RobElmer]

This movie really left me in a state of frustration and detraction from the movie. Partially thanks to the reading, I was able to figure out why this was. But for the average movie watcher I would have just attributed it to the movie being a real piece of art. This is the first movie of the class I actually would like to watch a second time in the near future. There are a lot of subtleties in the acting itself and how the film constantly repeats certain actions. For instance, how things (furniture, mail etc) are frequently delivered to the wrong room, and how each character would be doing something extremely similar to the other character at times. These subtleties make watching it so fun

[Karl Amspacher]

I thought that the choice of music for this film set the tone more than any piece of m-e-s. The song "Yumeji's Theme" played during several of the slow motion parts of the film resonated with me. I feel like the emotions that the characters are experiencing were conveyed through the scoring.

[Lucas Ashland]

In the Mood For Love is definitely one of those movies that I will have to watch over again to truly appreciate and understand what all was going on in the movie. Constant reoccurring themes kept coming up in the movie, such as the slow motion scenes where the music would change to a dramatic cello waltz, and these scenes would sort of leave me feeling confused, wondering what the significance was behind the dramatic change in mood. These moments of confusion took my attention away of the movie as a whole, and I instead focused on what these individual scenes meant. I think now that I understand the plot better and what these slow motion scenes are all about, I will be able to enjoy the movie more my second time through so I'm not feeling confused the entire time.

[Lisa King]

I really liked how In The Mood For Love used minimal dialogue and minimal voice overs. The strongest part of this film was the visuals, the slow motion scenes or the lingering on objects for and extended time, as well as the symbolism of the musical themes. Without the dialogue, we got to focus on those aspects more to help us understand and feel the emotion in the story, rather than being distracted or "told" how to think/feel about a situation.

[Melissa Werner]

I loved both ChungKing Express and In the Mood for Love. To me, ChungKing Express felt a little more familiar, but it was really interesting to see the depiction of 1960s China in In the Mood for Love. The way that the characters changed their interactions subtly throughout the movie as they grew closer was really nice in my opinion. Sometimes I get tired of the majority of romance movies where the process of the characters falling in love gets sped up.