In the Mood for Love
An essential and timeless theme if ever there was one, love naturally holds a special place in cinema. Romantic, sensual, obsessive, ambiguous, forbidden, lighthearted or profound, love on screen is as diverse as the individuals who live its stories. Drawing form different eras, tones, and cinematic styles, this program brings together a selection of remarkable films that will warm your heart from the start of the winter season to Valentine’s Day.
Winner of the Best Actor Award and the Technical Grand Prize, 2000 Cannes Film Festival
Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past decade of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career. (Janus Films)
Wong Kar-wai
Born in Shanghai in 1958, Wong Kar-wai moved to Hong Kong as a child. For ten years, he was separated from his siblings, blocked in China due to the Cultural Revolution. This personal and collective upheaval undoubtedly permeated his work to come. After his studies, he became a production assistant, and a screenwriter for television. He joined Barry Wong's team, which introduced him to the film industry, and notably wrote the screenplay for Final Victory, directed by Patrick Tam, who also produced his directorial debut, As Tears Go By (1988). By the 1990s, Wong was working with some of Hong Kong's biggest stars. Exploring very different genres, he achieved both critical and popular success with films like Ashes of Time, Chungking Express, and Happy Together, cementing his place on the global stage. He solidified his reputation in the 2000s with In the Mood for Love and 2046. After a brief foray into American cinema (My Blueberry Nights), he reunited with his long-time collaborator Tony Leung, and Hong Kong history in The Grandmaster.
