In the Mood for Love

 IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
FA YEUNG NIN WAH
(traditional Chinese: 花樣年華
simplified Chinese: 花样年华 
lit. 'Flower-like Years', 'the prime of one's youth') 
Writer & Director ~ Wong Kar-Wai
2000, Hong Kong-France
Stars ~ Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Chiu-wai, Ping-Lam Siu

It starts with a set-piece straight from a farce: two neighbours moving in at the same time, the movers getting their possessions mixed up when delivering to the wrong apartment. It could be comedy, or meet-cute, but that’s not this film. It’s the first of many times that they graze past eachother before they meet properly, and when they do they just kinda drift into the narrative. They fall into dramatising their belief that their spouses are having being unfaithful with one another; they role-play how they think the affair happened and confrontations. And of course. It is no surprise that they fall into the very trap that they themselves have set.

In fact, that’s not the only farcical situation they find themselves in, trapped in a room to avoid discovery while their neighbours play mah jong outside all night. Indeed, the supporting cast we see could easily be comedic if turned up a bit. But the film is harnessed to the introverted, somewhat serious and brittle lead characters. 

It is Wong Kar Wai’s seventh film, built from daily improvisation and collaboration with the actors, an idea rather than a script; Wong crafts the story in the edit, describes himself as a band leader. Developed originally from the idea of exploring characters through food and the title ‘A Story of Food’. It is set in Hong Kong1962, the year Wong’s family moved from Shaghai to Hong Kong.The surface of this film, encapsulating highly attractive people with unspoken desire, has had a long-term influence on advertising. Certainly its use of slo-mo moodiness hasn’t dated, a motif of romantic evocation. In fact, ‘In the Mood for Love’ has proven a popular recurring screening with twenty-somethings at London’s Prince Charles cult cinema.  The whole film looks dipped in mint and rouge, perhaps the occasional plum, and a jukebox of oldies. The choice of Nat King Cole is because Cole was his mother’s favourite. It is chic and dressed to knock you out; even the characters say of Maggie Wong’s gorgeous parade of cheongsam dresses, “She dresses like that to buy noodles?” They have money but nowhere to go?

Wong started in Hong Kong With Chris Doyle, then moved the shoot to Bangkok with Mark Lee when Doyle walked away. He discovered that Bangkok looked more like the era he was trying to capture, meaning the film was shot twice over. This added to an already arduous production that had endured Asian financial crises on top of Wong’s protracting improvisational style and starting production on already for its sequel, ‘2046’. And yet it is obvious that he had a confident vision, for the film feels of a whole, never hinting at any fractuous two year production. For example, Wong talks of how the intent was “we always wanted to keep the audience as one of the neighbours” and a passing-by and voyeuristic mood is kept throughout. 

Where the mode for much film is for characters asserting themselves, finding their voice, the characters of journalist Chow Mo-wan and a shopping company secretary Mrs. Chan are both introspective and quiet. For the most part the mood, movement and music elucidate their thoughts and turmoil. Tony Leung seems to have simply gone with the flow whilst Maggie Cheung struggled at first with the lack of structure and dialogue, although eventually finding her rhythm with it. She now considers that she put her soul into it, and certainly Wong casts the impression that he sees this definitely as a collaboration, always saying “we” when interviewed about the production. Rarely are reserved characters given such elegant context and roam and romance in. 

Wong has spoken  of the influence of Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, of the fact because the protagonists are a handsome pair that we don’t suspect them of darkness or creepiness: “Just imagine if it was John Malkovich playing this role. You would think, ‘This guy is really weird.’” That’s true, but also that the aesthetic doesn’t play that card either, saturating us in the tragedy of the unrequited love of two heartbroken people, giving that as the impetus. Certainly when you add suspicion to their behaviour, you can detect that Chow is perhaps manipulating Mrs. Chan, where he appears to be the director of the role-playing. Yet, malevolence does not linger as an aftertaste, just loneliness.  
 
Like Truffaut’s ‘Lift to the Scaffold’, ‘In the Mood for Love’ is a quintessential example of a jazzy mood put on screen. One could translate the slow motion and glides punctuated repeatedly by ‘Yumeji’s Theme’ as an evocation and romanticism of nostalgia and memory itself: certainly it insists on its own mournful elegance. It is a film where Wong is trying to recapture an era and the gossip of his childhood. With that, the longing of the film is similar to that of coming-of-age. Mood and memory is the story.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
Director ~ Adam Wingard
Writers ~ Terry Rossio, Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett
2024, USA-Australia
Stars ~ Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens

Within minutes, Kong is leaping in slo-mo to a dimuendo, and I’m thinking, “|Oh, one for the trailer.” But that’s far from the last. Godzilla curled up in the Colloseum is kinda cute, an example of a ridiculous detail that amuses. But I’m distracted thinking, “Why has she parked on the grass? No tyre tracks…?” Then we have the fast-talking loundmouth blogger that knows better than the uptight experts. And I’m thinking: “There’s a lot of sparks flying around in that underground base where people are running around like headless chickens – isn’t that very unsafe?” It is the kind of film where you notice the nonsensical details, the kind of film that knows you know it’s affronting your intelligence. And anything but red blood. Then it all hinges on Kong’s dentistry and a funky song saying “I gotcha!”, so, you know. Needle-drops that make sure you don’t take anything seriously and add nothing but nonsense (everyone thinks they can do what James Gunn or Tarantino can do).

The first fight between Kong and other giant apes had me locked in for a moment. Baby Kong isn’t as cloying-annoying as you might anticipate from the trailer. How much did this cost? Despite Kong occasionally impressing, very much fake gamesystem visuals, insulting compared to the focus of ‘Godzilla Minus One’, although more expensive – and something like this is why something like that was such a revelation. Whether it meets a “fun” quota depends on your taste. After all, Kim Newman says, “This spectacle fully embraces the toddler-tantrum-on-a-colossal-scale aesthetic and is winning because of rather than despite its essential goofiness.” I sensed shrug rather than goof.  

 

There’s potential in the premise of a bunch of humans trying to co-exist with kaiju, focusing on the minutiae of doing their dentistry for example, serios or fun, but this doesn’t care.  Lots of sound and monsters signifying nothing. Leave your brain and need for internal logic waaayy behind. Stuff on top of stuff with the constant pace of desperately urgent! And a roar! to imply excitement. But it is all just shallow distraction. Just: Kong knows sign language. Good Kong x Bad Kong. Kong has giant super-axe. Kong has … robo-arm? Oh, and here’s Godzilla putting in a cameo.

Project Hail Mary

 

PROJECT HAIL MARY

Directors ~ Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Writers ~ Drew Goddard, Andy Weir
2026, USA
Stars ~ Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz

 

Sort of ‘Flight of the Navigator’ for fans of ‘The Martian’ and ‘Interstellar’. Which isn’t so surprising as this is also taken from an Andrew Weir book ~ meaning lots of Personal-Growth-By-SciFi and pleasing problem solving ~ and directed by Lord and Miller ~ meaning cleverness and unassuming fun in equal measure. It’s also probably overlong with a structure that gets to the good spacey stuff and then flashes-back, so there’s no real build-up; and there feels like there’s multiple false endings before it pledges all-in with ... well. And yet, it all slides along easy, without the sense it’s padding too much (although the karaoke probably is). Mostly this is down to some wonderful visuals and the Grace-Rocky friendship which are a little at odds with the more austere flashbacks.

For those that objected to ‘Hamnet’s manipulations, ‘Project Hail Mary’ won’t be for you (unless you let popcorny genre flicks off the hook) as you know exactly how the emotional rollercoaster will go: scary dilemma to lead up to the weepy part, for example. But it does it so well and so winningly that it proves again how exemplary Lord and Miller are at this family fare that satisfies all ages. ‘The LEGO Movie’ and ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ showed how deft at being wacky and super-saturated with ideas and pop-culture they are and their ’21 Jump Street’ showed they could do more traditional-looking comedy. They can’t resist a pop-culture ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ reference or a screwball inclusion of Miriam Makeba’s ‘Pata Pata’, but never lose control of tone whilst throwing in such odd details. It is perhaps Daniel Pemberton’s controlling score that is pitched at the most obvious.

Ryan Gosling brings the name and doesn’t drop the ball when moving from human interaction to puppets; Sandra Hüller is great at projecting deadpan complexity under the rote steely Head of Projects, but it’s Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz) and his ship that will steal the show. The ship is a gorgeous monolith and Rocky is achieved with tangible puppetry and funny in the way that foreigners misunderstand English idioms. Yes, despite the apparent allusions to hard science ~ it is unbelievable that Grace would manufacture a translator in no time at all (and I’m not fully sure how it functions clearly and audibly all the time) ~ and the idea that an alien encounter would be something that Pixar wouldn’t turn down puts paid already to true alienness. Rocky doesn’t stray too far from the American human template, so there’s nothing about him we cannot understand. Despite the hat-tips, this is not that film where hard science dominates ~ e.g. spacecraft don’t move cartoonishly when steered badly, and I’m sure there are lot of certan details and terminology to annoy science pedants ~ yet nevertheless it always feels it is attentive. Simon Mayo’s reservation is in the meticulous science of Weir’s novel being forfeited for goofiness, and there is something to that, but as it is strong in slick entertainment that such lacuna can be tolerated. 

Rather, its insistence on two different cultures coming together to defeat a shared pending environmental apocalypse is almost radical in these trolling and trying times. Its benign open-heartedness and theme that friendship and collaboration overcomes, etc, is winning and not just performative. It is this that gives it worth in pessimistic times, as well as being quite fun and humanitarian, even if it not quite the immediate classic its cosmic-impressive visuals might insist.