I can't remember whether it was 2046 or In The Mood For Love that I saw first. I do know that, whatever the order, I came away with a sincere love and appreciation for director Wong Kar-Wai's style and stories. It's nearly impossible to not find yourself caught up in the emotion that seems to fill every frame of his films. It's not really less-is-more when it comes to his visual style, but more of an all-the-right-ingredients feeling. They are films about love that don't beat you over the head with their themes or with heavy-handed narrative that is more often than not employed in American rom-coms. Well, there was My Blueberry Nights, but we'll just say that something was severely lost in the translation there...
Out of all of his films that I have seen, In The Mood For Love has always been my favorite. Every time I watch it, I am hard pressed to single out any aspect of the film that doesn't work for me. Christopher Doyle's cinematography is beautiful with it's subtle flourishes of color, while the simultaneously vulnerable and intense nuances of both Maggie Chueng and Tony Leung Chiu Wai's performances keep you captivated and invested until the end.
Whether or not I was in the mood for love before watching it, there's no question as to where I stand when the credits begin to roll.
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