Sometime last week, I wrote the following: "Note to self: watch more deliriously subtle surreal romantic movies." One of my friends popped up in the comments and suggested I watch some Wong Kar Wai movies. I love my friends, and it's a good suggestion. My favorite of Wong's movies is In the Mood for Love (2000), and because it's been a few years since I've seen it, and because I don't think I've ever written about it, I decided that I needed a revisit.
The story here follows two neighbors in 1962 Hong Kong who slowly realize that their respective spouses are having an affair. This shared experience draw them together, but it also keeps them apart. Mrs. Chan is played by Maggie Cheung. She works in a travel office as an executive assistant. Mr. Chow is played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai. He's a journalist who wants to write martial arts novels, an interest he shares with Mrs. Chan. During the course of the movie, they play-act the meeting of their spouses in an attempt to understand and come to terms with the affair. Later, they play act the confrontation with their spouses. This acts as a kind of long courtship, and, inevitably they fall in love. But they don't consummate it. "We're better than them," Mrs. Chow says. Eventually they part and their paths continue to almost meet again, but it's not to be. "That era has passed. Nothing that belongs to it exists anymore," the movie tells us near the end. The feeling of loss is palpable.