🎬 #159 Love Is A Mood.
The promise of love is much like the promise of an idea. When both are in that early stage, where they exist as an inkling, a sense, or a suspicion - they’re perfect. It’s this dream of purest imagination, a mirage you fall in love with. In theoretical form, without the intervention of all the things reality brings, it’s everything you can imagine it to be. It’s beautiful and complete onto itself, because it’s exactly as it is, in your mind - in feeling. It’s not until those feelings or idea are made concrete by outward action, admission or the structure of a formal relationship is established that the initial mood faces challenges. Reality has a way of interrupting that form of perfection, like a drop in still water. The ripples disturbing that perfect image reflected in the water, in the mood of your mind and body. The external forces of reality probing, fondling something that’s been an exclusively of the interior domain. The pesky physics, logics, practicality and weirdness of world join forces to ‘ruin’ something that could be totally ‘perfect.’
That’s maybe what holds so many of us back from ‘going for it.’ Whether that be in matters of love or in personal goals or pursuits. Basking in that imagined feeling - there are no issues, it’s perfect as it can be or will ever be. Like the form of a building dramatically and artistically sketched by a star architect. The form of love or pursuit isn’t subjected to extensive trials and tests to become a real thing - a building that people can live in, work in and so on. The practicality, the engineering doesn’t have to be considered when you see that gorgeous, spontaneous-looking sketch. In the mind, feelings and goals are walled off, immune, to the limiting factors of the world they’re brought into. We don’t want to put that precious feeling to the test, that idea to the test. Because they fear it might not be what they had imagined. The reality might not live up to the mood of the citadel where this perfect thing has resided, inside our hearts and minds.
I think that’s why this week’s film is so beloved because it’s kind of this idea. It’s the concept of something that could be but that never is. It’s only a mood that’s perfect in the film, something that’s unfulfilled, untried. And in that way it is the ultimate romantic thing because it’s not realised. It’s a sketch of what could be.
This week it’s only one film, I’m sorry. But once you finish watching it and basking in that perfect mood - do the brave thing and take action, whether that be in matters of love or pursuits. Because I think that, actually, it’s better to let reality meddle. You never know, it might be better or different than you ever imagined. And you at least tried, and, that, in itself is beautiful. Bringing those things into reality, despite the obstacles, is love. It’s the ultimate act of caring.
Lots of love,
Bry
FILM: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
2000 Dir Wong Kar-Wai
1 hr 39 mins
Considered by many to the Wong Kar-Wai’s masterpiece, I didn’t really get it on first viewing, I was pretty young at the time. But after subsequent watches at different times of my life, I now see what why it’s so beloved.
The mood, as you’d expect, is everything - it’s perfect as I alluded to in my intro. This tension, this yearning for a love that can’t possibly happen because of their own choice. Their own unwillingness to do what their partners are doing, which is, have an affair.
Every frame, every lighting choice is all geared towards this articulation of a love becoming, but never being acted upon. It reminds me of this great Japanese phrase that there isn’t really an English equivalent for - which is Koi No Yokan. Which roughly means ‘the promise of love’ or ‘the premonition of love.’ The feeling that as you get to know someone, you know that a deep love will inevitably develop. But the film stops at the feeling and is never brought into reality. And so it exists in this perfect form - an oddly beautiful fairytale form of pure, cinematic love.
The production of the film itself was anything but fairytale. Shooting for over a year and editing for many many months, from a script that was adapted from one part of a larger intended film - this was an inspiring but incredibly demanding process - according to most involved. The film shot for so long that the initial DOP, Christopher Doyle, had to be replaced by Mark Lee Ping Bin, because he was scheduled to work on another project. Tellingly, Doyle hasn’t worked with Wong Kar-Wai since the follow-up 2046.
So this Valentine’s Day weekend, sit back and bask in this magic articulation of a love that is a perfect sketch, a form that’s protected from any intrusion by making it reality.
TL;DR: Wong Kar-Wai’s meditation on ‘Koi No Yokan’ is a beautiful film to admire.
*Available for a small rental fee on Apple and Amazon in the US but not available in the UK. A VPN can come in handy here.
Fact: The original inspiration for the film stemmed from a Japanese short story concerning two characters who often walk by each other in a stairwell, but never talk. On a jolly note, in that story the characters end up committing suicide.
BONUS: ONE FROM THE ARCHIVE
I made this short film a long time ago when Skype was more of a thing. Enjoy.