2046 & In The Mood For Love

[Kalach]

Wong Kar Wai's movies...

they're a puzzle to me, beautiful and horrible. All I think I know is they're a whole lot of Chinese S and disillusioned Fe.

At a guess:

In The Mood For Love

Chow - ISTP?
Mrs Chan - ESFJ

Yeah, they both spend a lot of time silent, with their thoughts, but Mrs Chan especially doesn't look introverted--she looks shut down.

2046

Chow - now he's ESTP writing science fiction?
Bai Ling - ESFJ

I really don't know what the character types are, especially Chow. Nonetheless it seems to my poor typing skills that all the women, given Chinese society, are ESFJ.

And just because it's beautiful...

[youtube=NdReiC3heu8]Angkor Wat Theme[/youtube]

 

[Colors]

In the Mood For Love is beautiful. Sublime. I haven't seen 2046 yet. Is it worth it?

I'm not sure I understand Wong Kar-Wai movies.

I *think* In the Mood For Love is about intersection. They could keep missing each other, even in these tight quarters and tight connection (through the spouses). Until they finally don't (choose not to?)... and then... I got nothing. Like maybe the moment they could choose to go for it (is all these moments, nearly identical days that play out our lives), but it passes but that doesn't mean it's worthless? Something like that? What do you think?

 

[Kalach]

Been a while since I saw In the Mood. And I gotta say, it's a hard movie for me to watch. It's beautiful, but so deeply, strictly Hong Kong Chinese. Without their austere sadness they are no one. It seems like in the movie everyone is defined by what is outside of them, and it has been that way for such a long time that "reserve" and "constraint" have become such a huge part of being "there". And what's left inside the person... well, it's not tragedy, is it? They are the connections they have to each other, and the connections those two people had, that was what they had. Like a formal dance. "Intersections" sounds right.

I don't know, it's a puzzle to me.

Currently watching 2046. The first hour is a pale imitation of In the Mood. The second hour promises to be something better.

(Oh, actually, I'm wrong about that. It's hard to put my finger on it. Yeah, 2046 is a pale imitation, but not really. I'll have to watch the rest of it and comment later.)

Also, currently downloading Days of Being Wild. Those three films are supposed to be a kind of trilogy, in order: Days, Mood, 2046.


EDIT: the stories are strange and attractive. To me, they're exciting in a very uncomfortable way. I know they are supposed to be sad, but melancholy is the better word. They build their beauty on small, simple things, and they don't apologise for being that way. In some way, I think the people in the stories find value and strength in their way of doing things. Tradition and reserve gives them strength and meaning.

 

[nonsequitur]

In the Mood for Love is one of my favourite films ever. It's beautiful, bleak, full of existential angst and the yearning for connection... Unrequited love at its best, completely romantic. Kalach, I like your reading of the characters and their deep sadness. It's very true of certain rare Chinese individuals, and very untrue of everyone else.

The romanticism is not in doing things like giving flowers, or kissing, or sleeping with each other. It's in being there, the mutual understanding of how they feel and individual restraint. They don't sleep with each other because it would make them like their cheating spouses.

What they want doesn't really matter to each of them. There's the situation, and the facade of a perfect family. There's the looks that they give each other and the fact that neither would do anything about it because of the situation and how they define themselves. That is incredibly romantic. How would they define their relationship? Is it even a relationship?

I didn't like 2046. It was pretentious and didn't have a coherent message. Though I guess it's worth seeing for the sex scene between Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi.

If you like In the Mood for Love, you should try Chungking Express (Chong Qing Sen Ling) as well.