And so they practice. "Let me go first," she says at the stairwell. "No, you go first," he says. They are always leaving, never arriving. I will not spoil the ending fully—you deserve to feel it unmediated. But I will say this: Mr. Chow goes to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. He finds a stone ruin with a small hole in the wall. He whispers a secret into that hole. Then he seals it with mud.
Wong Kar-wai once said he wanted to make a film about "the things we don’t say." He succeeded so completely that watching it feels like reading someone else’s diary—and finding your own name on every page. in the mood for love wong kar-wai
They are in the mood for love. They just refuse to call it that. Wong Kar-wai and his cinematographer, Christopher Doyle (along with Mark Lee Ping-bing), break every rule of coverage. They shoot through venetian blinds, behind door frames, under stairwells. They use slow motion so languid it feels like suffocation. The camera is always almost looking away. And so they practice
★★★★★ Where to stream: Criterion Channel, Max, and rental platforms. Best paired with: A bowl of room-temperature noodles. A feeling you can’t shake. They are always leaving, never arriving
Then there is the music. Nat King Cole’s "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps). A waltz by Shigeru Umebayashi. Every time the melody swells, you know something will not happen. The music is the sound of longing converted to regret. Why don’t they just be together?