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.

Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme

Director ~ Josh Safdie

Writers ~ Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

2025, Finland-USA

Stars ~ Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion

 

More Safdie-stress with Josh’s ‘MARTY SUPREME’, set in 1950s ping-pong world with incongruous 1980s pop hits and focused on a Timothée Chalamet everything-in performance. The Safdie approach is a compelling and perhaps career-best central performance, a stellar cast with a sprinkling of surprise cameos, a breathless pacing kept buoyant by a striking soundtrack, and a piling-on of mostly misfortune brought on by the protagonist’s assholeness. It’s a full coarse meal featuring period recreation a bonus. An obvious Chalamet passion project that saw him putting the muscle in for a canny and aggressive marketing campaign that screamed of its own importance, ‘Marty Supreme’ came on with all the insouciance of its eponymous protagonist.

Yes, there is nothing here that wasn’t covered gloriously in ‘Uncut Gems’, even another excellent score by Daniel Lopatin. Not a fan of incongruous songs on the score, although that’s the postmodern way, and even if they are too on-the-nose I admit the use of ‘Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime’ hit me just right. Expensive for A24 studio, indulgent, sometimes reaching greatness, a description of one man’s stubbornness and delusion. Still, even after following such a selfish hustler for hours and deciding he isn’t worth rooting for because of all the damage he’s done, the third act is still riveting. On the way, it is perhaps Chalamet’s fencing with Gwyneth Paltrow that is best, and the cameos by Abel Ferrara and Tyler the Creator that stand out. Perhaps the ending frustrates because the whole film has been about the dangers of  narcissism when you Follow Your Dream at the expense of everything and everyone else. Is that the American Way? – Discuss. The arrogance of con-your-way-to-greatness?

 

One Battle After Another

 

One Battle After Another

Writer & Director ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

2025 ~ US

Stars ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro,

Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti

 

Paul Thomas Anderson offers up another breathless kaleidoscopic drama full of satire, poignancy, excellent ensemble performances and several effortlessly suspenseful set-pieces. Under it all, Johnny Greenwood’s score plays between scenes and time to provide a fluidity to all the chaos. Covering a lot of ground, Anderson’s editing and script effortlessly leapfrogs decades and characters with a credo that nothing changes that much and we are forever chased down by our past. Indeed, the basis of the script is Tomas Pynchon’s novel written in 1990, and then Anderson says this took him about twenty years to write, but the observations and commentary, even with a little updating, are still relevant.

I’ve seen it criticised for being “liberal propaganda”, but the leftist terrorists here are surely just as caricatured as the weirdo, heartless Right Winger cabal, the slimeball white men plotting in bunker backrooms. The black gun totin’ pregnant promiscuous revolutionaries who forfeit motherhood for jealousy of her own baby and The Cause and the burn-out paranoid loser stoner dad are exactly fitting a conservative view of Leftist Revolutionaries to sneer at. Anderson says that he based the French 75 movement on The Weather Underground from the Seventies, which is a weirdly dated exemplar when there are surely more current possibilities to imagine (but you can’t be taken seriously if you say Antifa). Brett Easton Ellis accuses the film of “liberal mustiness”, of not reading the current political room;  but if the characters are manifestations of what their enemies imagine, the film’s  representation of the Right Wing is less outdated than of the left. That it provokes criticism for the portrayal of Prefidia too surely means it is poking at both sides; not that Ellen E Jones’ criticism of Anderson’s tripping on the Racist Jezebel trope is without merit, but that it perhaps misses a wider picture where all the main characters are filtered through questionable-cartoonish-broad filters. I bristled at both the naming of characters as Lockjaw and Junglepussy for being trite/obvious/dubious, but the the former is also funny as you roll your eyes, and learning that the latter is Shayna McHayle’s stage name means it is owned as a deliberate provocation; and certainly she uses her screentime to strut it, even as it hits on blackpoitation.

 

Sean Penn’s inscrutable sleazeball weirdo is unforgettable: I mean, “Col. Steven J. Lockjaw”… But I don’t think I go too far out on a limb when I say we see such cartoonish types representing Republicans and the interests of White Supremacy on a regular basis currently. Sean Penn finding the scariness of the caricature, Lockjaw is both ridiculous and dangerous, which is a truth. Leonardo DiCaprio bumbles and rants comically over his earnest intentions with Benicio Del Toro quietly securing his corner by moseying through his scene-stealing whilst everyone else does the fireworks. Teyana Taylor is the force of nature that propels the narrative long after she’s gone in hiding, and Chase Infiniti as Willa brings the down-to-earth, confused yet headstrong outcome to all of this. The prodigy of both sides, Willa’s story is the most shaded and it is pertinent that Infiniti’s performance doesn’t follow the broad strokes most around her: her character is single-handedly dragging the film from its Seventies’ Classic feel (“mustiness”?) into a yet uncharted future rebelliousness.

 

The police descending upon Sensei Sergio St. Carlos’ operation as Bob argues about passwords trying to connect with his old movement and, especially, the final car chase are highlights. Dark farce and excellent propulsive pacing mean the momentum never lets up: we are dropped into the action and it never slows, and despite what it is made of, it never feels polemical over the movie needs of fun and thrill. Afterwards, you can do your think-piece. Amusing, exciting, a little surprising, it moves from the debatable broadsides into something more heartfelt and, through the symbol and promise of Willa, something more hopeful, even if there is no certainty of what.

In fact, how relevant and zeitgeisty it feels makes it a significant satire, because: if ‘Civil War’ was portentous in its declarations, ‘One Battle After Another’ roots it all in the messy insecurities and weirdness of the individuals concerned, trying to live down their past or abusing their positions. In fact, its skewering of political extremities to personal flaws and ego is evergreen, especially for a country always at war with itself and in the Trump era feels more vital than ever.

Film Comments 2024: Others + Horror

 Film Comments 2024: Others + Horror

Jonathan Glazer ‘TheZone of Interest’  was remarkable anti-narrative portrayal of total horror, presenting a perspective of the facilitators that treat it as an extension of their cosy, privileged lives. A profound achievement.  

 

I may have been unconvinced that Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ gelled, but in a pending "President Trump Toxic Avenger 2" world, it’s vision of people at war with each other for who-knows-what? reason certainly seemed to be onto something, somewhat prescient for those perpetually doomscrolling.

To more conventional thrillers:

 

Joshua Erkman’s ‘A Desert’ was a solid, sunbaked thriller. A photographer goes on a road trip, bearing a mid-life crisis, and discovers – like so many horrors – that Some People Just Want To Fuck You Up. Even if that’s predictable, there are full-blooded performances, grittiness, beautiful cinematography, and enough inventiveness to make this memorable. A film that will surely earn itself cult status.

 

Rather than the stylisation and staginess of his previous ‘Psychopaths’, Mickey Keating’s ‘Invader’ shouted a smash-and-grab intent. It’s a slender, brash and often intense home invasion tale told in hand-held fashion that – in their stage introduction – Keating and editor Valerie Krulfeifer warned we may have to look away and take a break from at times. And yes, sometimes the shaky-cam is confusing – blocking doesn’t seem to be a thing – but it is obviously deliberate rather than artless. Keating talked of trends in the nineties for films about Americans going abroad and getting fucked up, and how he wanted to invert that (and just stopped short of saying outright “Why do people want to come to Chicago?” Keating and Krulfeifer were light and breezy, likable and funny). And it’s true that the America presented here is litter-strewn, unfriendly, threatening and ultimately homicidal in a weirdo get-up. ‘Invader’ is a short and loud burst of social anxiety with no room for relief.

 

For lighter entertainment:

 

Chris Renaud’s ‘Despicable Me 4’ may have a plot, with Gru the main guy, but it’s the minions we come for, surely. They are a brilliant comic creation and their slapstick a constantly amusing occasionally hilarious delight. The franchise was always based in satirising the superhero/villainy genre and this time round, the minions get their own superhero group, with their going around erroneously do-gooding a highlight.

 

Kelsey Mann’s ‘Inside Out 2’ proved a solid, inventive primer for teenagers negotiating emotions. Well actually, ‘The Numskulls’ allegory is a good foundation for thinking about behaviour at any age. New Teenage Emotions gatecrash the equilibrium of our growing protagonist Riley’s character, and it’s their interplay that is the film’s core delight. Goofy designs, bright and colourful, mono-motivated and often at odds yet all aiming on the same goal. It’s a smart and mindful screenplay and execution with plenty of poignancy (Embarrassment helps and covers for Sadness). Definitely in the quietly brilliant camp.

The defiantly oddball ‘Hundreds of Beavers’ by Mike Cheslik was deliriously inventive, always funny, quite unique and spiked with nastiness as much as cartoon slapstick and craziness. That it gives people dressed up as animals romping around a forest such consistent focus and technical ingenuity – just a 19^th century bear-trapper trying to kill as many animals as he can to impress a hard-to-get girl with furs – on small budget and a load of creativity was impressive; that’s it’s just plain smart-stupid-funny and entertaining even more. Now you know what Guy Maddin rebooting Looney Tunes looks like.

 

 Pablo Berger’s ‘Robot Dreams’ was as much about loneliness as ‘All of Us Strangers’ and ‘I Saw the TV Glow’, and had a sneakily sombre tone, but colourful and benign. The anthropomorphising is absolute from our protagonist DOG to the Robot he buys for a friend. It taps into pet love sentiment and so will inevitably reach deep, although it perhaps doesn’t go as you might think. Its ultimate message about the depth and perhaps brevity of a best friendship coming up positive and life-affirming. Full of lovely details such as comedy pigeons, or a street-drumming octopus and snow on a beach, one of those benevolent, all-ages animations with proper emotional resonance. And in that way, a small treasure.

 

To franchises:

All I know is that I watched Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune part 2’ in a state of awe. His slightly detached manner of storytelling is not for some, but from the post-credits voice blaring out to the subsequent soldiers silently gliding up dunes, I was beguiled. It is typically a second viewing that reveals the linearity. Launching from the set-up of its predecessor, this sequel consummates a world-building of stunning cinematic breadth and technical achievement. That it is a anti-chosen-one narrative is a buried under a sandcastle, but Paul Atreides refusing and then fully embracing the White Messiah complex is nicely accentuated by foregrounding Chani: I found Zendaya a weakness of the first part, but not so here. The palaces, the spaceships, the battles, the pomposity: this is science-fiction size on screen to compete with what was in your head when you read a book. Totally immersive.

 

Wes Ball’s ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ came trading in the goodwill of the franchise that has lasted decades. It came with a somewhat unwieldy name that implied we might get an ‘Outhouse of the Planet of the Apes’ at some future point. The opening is a little like consul gameplay challenge with the apes trying to get far-flung eggs, and because it was world-building for another trilogy, the pacing issues were achingly obvious, almost recovering from them when Proximus’s prison-Utopia becomes the focus. But Mae the human is a flaw, being one of those defiant characters who causes a much trouble when her only motivation is defiance!, thinking that is strength, and the film seems to think so too. Dreary and despondent rather than scary, energised doom mongering. 

 

Shawn Levy’s ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’: There are memories of the meta-stuff being funny in the predecessor, but that has turned into in-jokes, no consequence and a narrative built on audience applauding cameos. Yet, good for a few laughs.

 

Fede Álvarez ‘Alien: Romulus’ does a lot right, rehashing and rebooting, and there was a lot to enjoy when a bunch of looters come up against xenomorphs. There was always a sense of thinking out the set-pieces and problem solving, of returning to monster-movie roots. of the aliens trying to reclaim their genuine scary nature. But then there’s a call-back line so glaring, so wrong, that it undermines a lot of goodwill. Nevertheless, consistently great set design, David Jonsson’s turn as Andy and the standout shots of the spaceship in the planetary rings made this enjoyable.

 

Horror:

 

To get it out of the way: It’s doubtful that any alternative adaptation could usurp the glorious 1979 series that traumatised a generation, but if there ever was to be it was not Gary Dauberman’s ‘Salem’s Lot’. There was potential to the drive-in finale, but it was not a film that found a way to condense the sprawl of the material into something effective and unnerving, leaving it thin and shruggable.

 

Damien Leone’s ‘Terrifier Part 3’ was an obvious result of adolescent boys getting together trying to think up the most outrageous and gory set pieces they can. But there’s no doubt that Art the Clown is a great performance by David Howard Thornton, and that Leone can direct, wallowing in cruelty without any point or consequence. Like part 2: probably what non-horror fans think horror is: over two hours of sadism and outrageous gore with a magic sword get-out clause. But this time with added Christmas bullshit.

 

Films like Frédéric Jardin’s daft ‘Survive’ and even Pierre Tsigaridis’ daft and ikky ‘Traumatika’ were not-good-but-enjoyable-nonetheless. Films like ‘The Invisible Raptor’  and ‘Alien Country’ were far funnier and better than their one joke promise. Films like  Clark Baker’s ‘Test Screening’, Josh Forbes’ ‘Destroy all Neighbours’ and the ‘V/H/S Beyond’ did exactly what they promised on the tin, and enjoyable if undemanding for that.

 

But then there was Cameron and Colin Cairns’ ‘Late night With the Devil’ that managed to make its evident flaws irrelevant. It proved to be the genre’s underground success, overcoming any imperfections by its era recreation and just being greatly enjoyable.

Equally scruffy but memorable was Yusron Fuadi’s ‘The Draft!’, generically stumbling along it’s tropes, when suddenly its title makes sense and opens up a host of meta-gags. Even the score set to “overkill” and a gag reel make sense in context. Surprisingly smart and amusing.

 

‘The Last Voyage of the Demeter’: Troubled by distribution delays, André Øvredal’s embellishment on one of ‘Dracula’s best passages proved a solid big monster movie with some good characterisation (ships were centres of diversity) and some great monster effects. Not at all gruesome or scary, but impressively mounted and touched with a little nastiness when it needs it. Lavish and slick if unremarkable Gothic horror entertainment (and a light companion piece to Eggers ‘Nosferatu’).

 

Sébastien Vaniček ‘Infested’ had the socio-political horror down pat, where the bigger threat was the police trying to keep the less fortunate in a deathtrap, but the spider action was a little underwhelming.

 

In a post-pandemic world, David Moreau’s ‘MadS’ couldn’t help but have a little more socio-political heft, but as a straightforward One-Take-Wonder romp-and-dazzle on a familiar set-up, it delivered.

 

Alexandre Aja’s ‘Never Let Go’ was on the verge of saying something relevant about isolationism, delusion, nature/nature, but never quite made a point. Halle Berry gave it earnestness – but was this just commitment or signalling the mental illness of fundamentalism? And the child performances were impressive, as was the tense atmosphere – Aja is a craftsman, there’s no doubt – but there’s a fine line between ambiguity and being the feeling of being cheated out of answers.

 

A far better folk horror was Daniel Kokotajlo’s ‘Starve Acre’. Unfolding as expected, although distinguished by the rabbit action, but nevertheless hitting directly that pleasure zone of British Seventies horror vibe. Oddball performances, uncanniness, the sense that grief may lead you to dig up the past and into ruination.

Also in this realm was Benjamin Barfoot’s ‘Daddy’s Head’, impressive for having its internal logic all thought out and all the random uncanniness stem from this, making ultimate sense once you put the pieces together (horrors often feel like they’re the other way around). With a dread, slow burn atmosphere and a modest itinerary on its ambition, its lack of Big Horror might leave some cold, but it was far better than its bad, bad title.

 

Couples trouble was covered by Jason Yu’s creepy-fun ‘Sleep’  and Caye Casas’ ‘The Coffee Table’. The former was ultimately a sad tale, despite its veneer of horror tropes, and the latter funny until defined by the unbearable. In that sense, it was true horror.

 

For other favoured horror-thrillers that weren’t ‘Strange Darling’:

 

Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer ‘Dead Mail’: Set firmly in a dour, washed-out Eighties where most era homages look like cardboard cut-outs coloured in felt tips. Deliberately low-fi aesthetic, all the cassettes, typewriters, rotary phones and sleuthing mail departments surely puts this in a technological era that will be totally alien to younger viewers. Superior attention to detail, character and plotting makes this increasingly engrossing as an unusual thriller based upon synthesizer geeks and mail offices that work more like altruistic private detectives. There’s also bonus appreciation of the underappreciated heroism of working people just doing their job and taking a care. Its context feels so, so real with Fleck and Macer Jr’s performances infused with pathos rather that movie thriller panic and motivation. And the devotion to analogue synthesizer music on the soundtrack gives it that extra special element.

 

Any seasoned horror fan will get where this is going from the opening credits collage. Teddy Grennan’s ‘Catch a Killer’ makes for a thriller whose stylishness belies its B-genre concept, but it’s slick, entertaining, very enjoyable and hosts a great central performance from Sam Brooks. And for once, the romance feels worthwhile rather than performative. I for one appreciate the swiftness of the ending as opposed to a originally conceived protracted showdown that would have highlighted more problematic elements.

 

Perhaps Chris Nash’s ‘In a Violent Nature’ was not quite the slasher deconstruction I first thought it to be, but, my word: what a difference pace and camera placement makes. I was deeply amused that such a thing as an ambient slasher existed, and I was fully hooked. It trudged along with in a slow burn without a score to spark responses in a manner  that I assumed to be antithetical to the Jason Vorhees crowd. Often the plot and victims – I mean: we have seen it endless times – was approached by the hulking undead killer from afar, deliberately, non-excitedly; but every other kill was grandiose and gruesome. And the ending wasn’t going to win anyone over either, but all this same-old-story-from-a-different-angle was a winner for me.

 

And:

 

Disappointments 2024:

Drive-Away Dolls

Lady Frankenstein

MaXXXine

Never Let Go

Deadpool vs Wolverine

 

These were films I was genuinely excited for but left underwhelmed.

I mean, I never expected ‘Salem’s Lot’ to impress, but I thought I might be pleasantly surprised.

 

A few favourite soundtracks/scores 2024

The Zone of Interest

I Saw the TV Glow

Strange Darling

Perfect Days