In The Mood For Love (2000) - Sound and Image

In the Mood for Love, also known as Fa yeung nin wa (original title) is a Hong Kong romance drama film directed and written by Wong Kar-wai and stars Tong Leung and Maggie Cheung in 2000. In the Mood for Love is a Chinese melodrama, which falls under the Hong Kong New Wave.

The film takes place in Hong Kong, 1962. Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) is a journalist who happens to rent an apartment in a building on the same day as Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) who is a secretary in a shipping company and become next-door neighbours  Chow and Su find themselves alone in their rooms as their partners often leave them alone for overtime shifts. They continue their everyday life in loneliness of eating alone and as their relationship develops, both of their neighbours start taking notice. To be able to continue what they have going on, Chow rents a hotel room where Su and himself can be together without attracting any attention. Chow and Su’s relationship is said to be platonic, as there is a suggestion that they would be degraded if they stooped to the level of their spouses, but over time, they realised that they have developed feelings for one another. Both their lives part for many years. Three years later Su goes back to visit her former landlady, Mrs. Suen who has emigrated to the United States and asks whether there is still an apartment for rent. A while later, Chow also returns to visit his landlords, the Koos, and finds that they have emigrated to the Philippines. He asks about the family who used to live next door, as the new owner tells him that a woman and her son moved in and they are living next door. What he doesn’t realize is that the lady living next door is Su.

During In the Mood for Love, we see a different representation of love between two married people. The sound we hear within the film consists of sounds of rain, voiceovers, loads of talking going on between Su’s landlady and her family. We can’t hear one clear conversation, which is going on. However, we come across quieter scenes where we can only hear talking as well as the sounds of crickets. During this scene, we can’t see the person who is talking. We see two people moving in at once which is a lot going on at once. We see the same locations being used and we see a repeat one particular scene but it changes slightly but has the same song. During the dark alley scenes where we see Su and Chow, there are shadows, smoke as well as change of music.