In the Mood for Love —— Wong Kar-wai's Secret, Implication and Aesthetics

? Rent two young couples next door; Two victims betrayed by their wives/husbands; Two psychological processes from tracing the truth to dark feelings; One is a handsome and mature Hong Kong man, and the other is a beautiful and restrained Shanghai young woman.

? In the Mood for Love, which was released in 2, is different from the "box office poison" directed by Wong Kar-wai in the past by most literary and artistic minorities. Flower not only opened the precedent for Hong Kong and Taiwan films to be shown in the mainland, but also won the aesthetic title of "King of Glasses" in the mainland, and also helped Tony Leung Chiu Wai win the Cannes Film Award. It is one of the most classic films in Wong Kar-wai.

On the screen, Wong Kar-wai shows the lens aesthetics incisively and vividly, so that the whole movie can achieve the effect of "taking a screenshot as a desktop" almost at any time. This effect is actually particularly difficult to achieve in this movie. A large number of pictures of the movie are shot indoors, and they are typical old Tang buildings in Kowloon. The room is narrow and cramped, which not only makes the scene monotonous, but also makes it difficult to capture the depth of field. Once it is not well grasped, it will cause a very significant sense of oppression. In such a shooting scene, in addition to exquisite composition, there are very high requirements for lighting and lens selection. On the one hand, the director used the method of switching between far and near shots in the same location to avoid the repetition of the background, and used a large number of close-ups with small depth of field to increase the richness of the picture.

? On the other hand, a lot of black is used for the close-up view, and the foreground is polished, and the screen is full of obvious layering by using the interlacing of light and shadow and characters; At the same time, the use of filters of different colors and props such as mirrors not only embellishes the atmosphere, but also significantly increases the richness of the picture. It is not difficult to see the director's painstaking efforts from these ingenious arrangements.

In terms of plot, Flower is different from most films directed by Wong Kar-wai. It mainly uses the lens to promote the plot rather than narration or dialogue, especially to show the evolution of the relationship between men and women (which can be regarded as the basic skeleton of the whole film). Every 8 to 1 minutes, the director will show a clip without dialogue, mainly a combination of three or four short follow-up shots, supplemented by a three-stage violin BGM, which is controlled in a unique and magical way.

? The director's handling of the key juncture also gives people a feeling that he sees through it but just doesn't tell the truth. In an interview with this film, director Wong Kar-wai once said that he shot Flowers as a suspense film instead of a general romantic film, and that "secret" is the deeper theme and tone of this film, which can be seen from this technique. In addition, in the design of the dialogue (the screenwriter of "Flower" is also Wong Kar-wai), many key parts also avoid direct statements, and more information is contained in the tacit eyes and facial expressions of the two protagonists. For example, when both parties find that their other half is cheating, they don't reach the * * * knowledge directly through oral statements, but implicitly point out that the other party has a tie/handbag that can't be bought in Hong Kong like their husband/wife (slightly don't think deeply or ignore the eyes of the two protagonists) In addition, the director used a lot of blocking shots in the shooting, which is not difficult to find, and it is a deliberate "peep" perspective, which plays a very important role in creating the mystery.

? I think Su Lizhen, played by Maggie Cheung, is the most eye-catching part of the whole movie. In the shaping of the role, we can see Su Lizhen's pursuit of exquisiteness and perfectionism from countless details. For example, the landlady said that Sue had to wear a pair of exquisite makeup every time she went downstairs to buy a bowl of Wonton Noodles, and this character also determined that Su Lizhen could not tolerate any "stain" on herself, so she would try her best to restrain and avoid it even if she had a secret affection for Zhou Mu Yun.

In addition, Su Lizhen's cheongsam is one of the most widely praised highlights in Flowers. According to statistics, Maggie Cheung has changed more than 2 sets of cheongsam since the whole movie, which is enough to show the good intentions of director Wong Kar-wai in this movie. On the one hand, Maggie Cheung's slender figure is too suitable for cheongsam; On the other hand, Qipao, with its high collar and tight buttons, is the dress that fits the body best. It has two characteristics: conservative and sexy, which is exactly in line with Su Lizhen's contradictory heart in the movie. It can even be said that Qipao seems to be tailor-made for this movie. In addition, careful observation shows that the most common color tone of Su Lizhen's cheongsam is green, which often corresponds to the rational and conservative side of the role, which is also the image of Su Lizhen. The other kind is relatively rare, red, which corresponds to the emotional side of the role. Most scenes in which Su Lizhen and Zhou Mu Yun are wearing red cheongsam are full of ambiguous plots, and Su Lizhen wears green when they reveal their feelings after the rainstorm, which shows that Su Lizhen finally admits his feelings for Zhou Mu Yun. It can be said that the color of cheongsam just sets off Su's inner activities.

back to the plot of the movie, the main plot of this movie is an extramarital affair. This kind of theme often gives a feeling of an affair with a dog's blood (for example, various family ethics dramas that once occupied all major channels in China at eight o'clock), but this movie gives viewers a more natural feeling, which actually stems from some meticulous and coquettish little operations by the director. First of all, Zhou Mu Yun's wife and Su Lizhen's husband never appeared in the whole movie, which directly weakened the audience's sense of substitution for these two roles and thus reduced the empathy effect; In addition, the whole movie excludes or downplays any other characters whose age and face value are similar to those of the male and female host, making the relationship between the two people look more natural (such a technique should have the same effect as the treatment of "This killer is not too cold"); On the other hand, the director deliberately arranged two visual misleading scenes, one was playing mahjong for the first time, and the other was a scene in which two people simulated questioning Su Lizhen's husband at dinner. In these two scenes, the backs of Zhou Mu Yun and Mr. Chen (Su Lizhen's husband) were deliberately confused, and when the audience thought the other was Zhou Mu Yun/Mr. Chen, the truth was suddenly revealed. This kind of banter brought occasional relaxation to the audience and also shortened the distance between the male and female hosts invisibly. Director Wong Kar-wai said in an interview that he didn't want the film to be presented to the audience as a story about having an affair. Judging from the results, most viewers' first impression should be that "these two people can have such a beautiful feeling when having an affair". There are subtle differences in the expression of the two statements, but the effect is completely different, and Wong Kar-wai is undoubtedly extremely successful at this point.

In addition, this film, like Chongqing Forest, has a deeper color and metaphor of the times, and many film critics have a deeper understanding of this than I want, so I won't expand it here.

In the Mood for Love should be regarded as the earliest masterpiece directed by Wong Kar-wai. I can't sum up its artistic height and beauty in such a simple text, so for those who haven't seen it, I strongly recommend watching the original film, which will definitely make your eyes shine.