Speaker 1: We're Tomy Lorenzo and this is the Bitter Kitten Movie Club.
Hello Kitten's Welcome back to another edition of the b
k MC, a supplemental edition of the Pop Style Opinion
Pest podcast where we take a look at one movie
per week and unpack everything we can unpack about it.
This week's movie is director of Wan car Wise in
The Mood for Love from two thousand, starring Maggie Cheung
and Tony Leung. And you know, I gotta say, this
is the third time I've watched this film. The first
time I watched this film, it was only about five
or six years ago. I had heard about it, I
had seen clips from it, but I had never watched
the full film. And I was compiling a book proposal
about movie costumes, still working on that, and I knew
that her dresses, I knew that Maggie Chung's chungsund dresses
were iconic, so I wanted to watch the film to
see if I would include them in the book or whatever.
Fell in love with the movie. And then I found
out that you had not seen it, and I said, oh,
you had to sit down and watch this. It's so beautiful,
it's so you know about yearning and longing, and you know,
the filmmaking is so gorgeous and they're so gorgeous. So
then we watched it together and that was the second
time I watched it. Then I watched it this week
and I had a totally different read on it, and
I thought, am I have I changed? Am I become
more cynical? Or is this actually not a love story?
And that's kind of what I want to unpack today
is that it's I went into this this selection for
this week, thinking, well, we're just going to talk about
romance and longing and yearning and repression and all that
other stuff that is in the film. Don't get me wrong,
and I wouldn't suggest that those characters, mister Chow and
missus Chan are not in love at certain points during
the film. But what really struck me watching it this
time was they're actually more in pain than they are
in love. They share something, you know, they share something.
And it was while I was watching them like an act,
you know, roleplay their partners, where like they were pretending
to confront their partner or pretending to be their partner
who while committing adultery. And I'm watching these scenes I'm like,
this is kind of fucked up what they're doing emotionally.
They are stuck in this hole where they're enacting all
of their pain on each other over and over and
over again. And I don't know how I come down
on this just yet. Maybe we all come to a
conclusion by the end of this podcast, but I'm not
sure they Well, I did say that they are in
love at certain points in the movie. I don't know
if that's real love though. Anyway, I'm gonna stop and
let you give your impression.
Speaker 2: Well, I had heard about the movie, obviously, because everyone
talks about it. I mean, the fashion industry is in
love with this movie, rightly. So yeah, you know, people
who love movie, they love this movie. And yes, there
is this whole thing about including TUCM. I was watching
it and they introduced the movie as one of the
best love stories you know, in cinema, and so they
do play that that, you know, play that out like
it's one of the best love stories. I think it
is in a way. It's about love, no doubt about it,
because you know they're both married and they go through stuff. Yeah,
and they meet each other and they have something in common,
something they share and they explored that. Yeah, I think
that's that's pretty much. The movie is absolutely perfection beautiful.
It's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen
in my life. Yeah, I feel like I'm, you know,
looking at a fair May painting or something. It's just
one of those gorgeous things produced. I agree that is perfection.
I mean, they both look so gorgeous, and.
Speaker 1: I have never seen two people look so beautiful. The
only thing I can compare it to is there's a
movie called, Oh God, what's it called with Elizabeth Taylor
and Montgomery Clipped. I just had it any Place in
the Sun A Place in the Sun from nineteen fifty one,
and by my book, I have always considered that the
most beautiful couple ever captured on film. If you ever
have a chance to just google the stills. I'm talking
to the audience. I'm sorry, if you ever have a chance,
or if you just want to google the stills. They
are breath taking. It is Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clipped
at the height of their beauty. And it's the same
thing here with Tony Leong and Maggot Chunk, Like there
are a time story. My god, these two people are
breath taking.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they're dressed so beautifully. He looks stunny, his
hair is flawed. It looks like a goddess. I could
not stop looking at her the entire time. How can
you be that gorgeous and perfection? Perfection? Perfect? You're just perfect?
Speaker 1: You look your hair, you know, the custom the way
she fells out those oh my god, the way she
moves her arms and reminding the enselessness of her body.
Speaker 2: Reminded me a little bit of a bed feast. With
the two ladies. How they move very gracefully. Everything is
just gorgeous. She the costumes are beautiful. The costumes were
designed by William.
Speaker 1: Chan Yeah, William Chang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he worked very closely with the director. They had
a very clear vision of what they wanted. And it's
interesting because it's that Chinese dress that most women wore now, yeah,
and it and which is kind of like one the
same kind of silhouette and fit, but they they make
it specially unique by changing the fabrics and adding details.
Speaker 1: And I mean, the basic dress is exactly the same
and it's just changed up by fabrics, the different fabric
fabric choices. So her silhouette remains exactly the same and
her hairstyle except for when the time period shifts and
in a little bit later she has longer hair, but
she has that boufont hairdoo absolutely gorgeous, and it just
it's just such a it combines so beautifully on her.
There are other women in the film who have similar
hairstyles that are wearing the same style of dress, but
it just doesn't look the same on them as it
does on her.
Speaker 2: The story is that it took five hours every day
to do the hair makeup alone, because yeah, and you
can see that, and I love that it reflects the
sixties also it's very Asian but also the sixties, and
it's just beautiful. She the designer made the custom designan
I believe forty six dresses. She ended up wearing. How
many tweets anyone dresses into film.
Speaker 1: She rarely re wears a dress. She does rewear a
couple of them, but they're all such blindingly distinct prints
and colors that every time she changes a dress, it's
extremely noticeable. Like my film, and it's smart because of
the style of filmmaking, which has a sort of dreamy
it's not nonlinear, but it's not exactly. I mean, I
think it all happens in order, but it sort of
floats in and out. Things tend to repeat, and the
only way you know time has passed is by her
dresses bye bye, because they shift from scene to s the.
Speaker 2: Core of the movie. According to director, something I read
is that that's what he wanted, repetition. It's pretty much
the same emotions played.
Speaker 1: You know, they are people who are stuck in a
loose yes, exactly, and so the film very much has
that quality. And it's very much whenever the plucking cello
strings happens and they go into a slow motion thing,
it feels like people, beautiful people who are trapped, but
they are trapped.
Speaker 2: I do think they both look incredible, and I think
that it's funny because one of the bitch and neighbors
I love her, she says, did she go dressed like
that to get nudice? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, because she's always perfect no matter
where she goes, whatever she does to words, I do
think sometimes you know this, this is a time and
a place that is completely alien to me. I cannot
talk about what Hong Kong in the nineteen sixties was like.
Their lives would have been, like, however, one car, why
does remember Hong Kong in the nineteen sixties, and he
really wanted to recreate that period in that time. So
I have to rely on my faith in him as
a director that what he has done is faithful to
the time and place. On the other hand, I do
think it gets into a bit of Hollywood style fantasy
when you look at where they're living and what they
do for a living. It's kind of hard to reconcile
that with the fact that they both look like movie
stars throughout the entire movie, Like how does she look
like that living in that tiny little aparty? And where
does he even keep all those trustes?
Speaker 2: And I think he's aware of that because if you
look at the walls, the walls are dirty. When you
know the buzzer, everything, it's dirty and old, right, So
it's an old building, you know, it's nothing fancy.
Speaker 1: Rainy alleyway that they needed that is gorgeous. It's all
crumbling and stare light bulbs. But my god, it looks
so beautiful. Meaning at the stairs all the time. I mean,
just her, get Jesus Christ, look at her. I do think, uh,
director Wong Uh and the cinematographer whose name I don't
have in front of me, were very deliberately and how
they shot her. They were very aware of how those
dresses hug her body. They were very aware of the
shape of her body. So, you know, it's weird for
me to be sitting here talking about an actress's body
in this, but they made it central. And you know,
she has a long, thin, sinuous sort of body. And
the way she moves on camera, the way they shot
her as she moved through, you know, with her her
pocketbook in the crook of her arm close up and
you're watching her hips way that is just sexy, sexy,
sexy as hell without being remotely This is what I'm
trying to get at. They centered her body on screen
quite a bit, but I did not feel it was lascivious.
It's clearly the male gaze at work here. I mean,
I wouldn't suggest otherwise, but I didn't think it was
a lacibious framing of her body. It was simply the
fact that her body looks amazing in those dresses. And
they are constantly in very close quarters with each other,
so you're getting close ups on her body, their bodies
are constantly touching.
Speaker 2: But I also think their beauty makes a point that
these two characters are absolutely breathtaking, their gorgeous. Yeah, and
yet they're being you know, uh, their spouses are cheating,
are cheating on them. So so it has a point
there to show that these you know, these people are
gor She is absolutely I've seen so many incredibly beautiful
actors male and female on you know, on screen, on screen.
Speaker 1: But my god, she'll cut to her face every now
and then every Wow, look at that face. Look at
how perfect that face.
Speaker 2: She she is. But he is gorgeous as well. He's
very beautiful. But she is insane. She Yeah, absolutely, She's
like a porcelain doll. She's just incredible. All right.
Speaker 1: Let me say, let me read a quote from one
car Wide that he gave to La Weekly around the
time of the film. I think it's very interesting that
most of the audience prefers to think that this is
a very innocent relationship. These are the good guys, because
their spouses are the first ones to be unfaithful, and
they refuse to be Nobody sees any darkness in these characters,
and that they are meeting in secret to act out
fictitious scenarios of confronting their spouses and of having an affair.
I think this happens because the face of Tony Leung
is so sympathetic. Just imagine if it was John Malcobits
playing this role, you would think this guy is really weird.
And that's the other way I think director Wong uses
their beauty is to mask that what's happening here is
not really as it's I don't want to say that
it's not innocent because it is innocent. I don't think
they actually He says in certain interviews that they do
not consummate the relationship, and there was some confusion about
that because there was a scene where it looked like
they had, but then they act throughout the rest of
the film as if they've never even touched each other.
And he said he has a very loopy, improvisational directing style.
So they shot for like fifteen months. Maggie Chung. She
gave an interview at the Toronto Film Festival that year
where she talks about how pissed off she was working
with him because he was just constantly they were improvising things,
the story was shifting. He would do take after take
after take, and it was very hard. There was no
hard script for them to work with. I'm pointing this
out because one of the scenarios that he did shoot
is that they did have sex. I don't think he
shot a sex scene, but they shot a scene where
it was clear. It's clear, and then he decided not
to use it in the film. He decided not to
go in that direction. And that's a very interesting way
of doing filmmaking because it leaves the audience with a
because he used takes and he said that, he said,
I used takes where they were acting as two people
who had had sex.
Speaker 2: With each other. I can think of a couple of
a couple.
Speaker 1: Of scenes where it seemed like they had and then
later in the film it's like, oh no, they've they've
never even touched. And I do think that's I guess
what I'm trying to get out here is that this
film is probably more impressionistic than it appears at first glance,
and that even though it is relatively linear storytelling, I
think I don't think you can take much of the
I don't think you can take the film entirely literally.
I guess that's my point. It's impressions of things. It's
moods of I think it's very telling that the title
is in the mood for love, which doesn't necessarily imply
that there's actual love there. It just means you're in
the mood for it.
Speaker 2: I think because everything is so secretive, and especially at
that time, you can tell, you know, you couldn't share
with the rest of the apartment building that you know,
their spouses were having an affair. So they they found
each other and it happened that they were, you know,
in the same situation. And I think they they kind
of share that. I do believe that they I think
it started because I think their relationship because, like I said,
they had something in common that they shared, and also
they felt betrayed. I mean, you can tell that they're
very hurt by by by what, you know, being cheated.
So so they found each other and they had that
to talk about and you know, uh and share because
they couldn't share with anybody else. But at the same time,
I think they were feeling in attraction to each other obviously,
I mean it's clear, Uh you can you can see
the tension, you know, you can feel the tension. So
it's an it's interest. At the same time, they're trying
to be mature about it, you know, rational about it. Right,
It's conflicting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, why don't we take a short break
and when we come back, I want to talk a
little bit about why did their spouses cheat on them?
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're back talking about in the Mood for Love and
one of the things, you know, the thing we're trying
to unpack the fact that the idea that this film
is darker than it appears at first glance, and that.
Speaker 2: It's a sadder not necessarily you know.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I think there is a darkness there. I
do think, and this is kind of what I wanted
to unpack. It's not the idea that, you know, if
someone cheats on a spouse, well then they must have
done something to deserve it. But I mean, this is
a film, this is a story, and things are put
in the story that are you know, are there to
be unpacked. So, and you pointed this out. They're so
breathtakingly beautiful, it's a little hard to understand why anyone
would cheat on them. And I do think it's an
interesting always to not show the spouses.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that was brilliant.
Speaker 1: But I do think it gets gimmicky at times because
some of the scenes are staged in a way it's
like you're working too hard to obscure a fire here.
But I think it adds you want to know, like
you want to know what does his wife look like
that that's you know, or what does her husband look
like that he would cheat on her? She's stunning, you know.
And all you're left with is your imagination of, well,
are they are these other people even more attractive than
they are or did they come together for reasons other
than simple attraction?
Speaker 2: And this is my point.
Speaker 1: Both of those characters, mister Chow and missus Chan, they
they live at a remove from everybody around them. They
are not warm with other people. He has his one
friend that he that he takes care of. But she's
very cold. She's very cold to her neighbors, she's very
cold to her book. She's very removed.
Speaker 2: Never accept an invitation to to have a meal with him, no,
you know, she always says no whatever. So she's that
side of her.
Speaker 1: And then there is a very clearly a very darkly
brooding side to him. So my takee and the other
thing about her. I think is interesting is that there
could have been a way to play this character as
a lot more demure than she actually was. But uh,
missus Chan comes off as fairly forceful in terms of
her character.
Speaker 2: Fairies.
Speaker 1: I would never call her a bitch, like, That's not
how she comes across in the film. But she's she's harsh.
I think there's a harshness to her.
Speaker 2: I think she's asserted, you know, like, I mean, she's she's,
she's she knows what she wants, she's I think she's yeah,
and okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So she has a sort of a sort of assertiveness
to her, and he has a certain sort of dark,
brooding aspect to him. Right, And I guess what I'm
getting at here is when you look at unrequited love
or love stories that don't pan out, which this one is,
you kind of wonder, well, would it have worked if
they had stayed, if they had made a go for it.
And again, my previous two viewings of this film, I
would have said, absolutely, it's a great love story. Look
at them, They're amazing. But now I watch it and
I think I don't know that that's what the film's
trying to say. I don't know that these two people
would have been any good with each.
Speaker 2: Other, right, but it's very clear to me that they're
very hurt by. They were truer because when they do
their little rehearsal, which threw me off completely, like the
first scene when they're saying goodbye, that the scene is repeated. Yeah,
I was like, what's going on my TV?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right? I thought it was like, all right, they're showing
the same thing. There's something wrong with my TV. But
then I realized, now they're just rehearsing. And when she cries,
I think that she obviously is very hurt by her husband,
be true, you know.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting how she never has these emotions in
front of other people, though she cries when she's alone
because or with him. Because that's true, she did cry
with him. That's because they share something. They share something,
they share the.
Speaker 2: Same emotions, and and so I think that's incredible. I
think that's why they're together. They they kind of like,
you know, found each other because and.
Speaker 1: So do you think they could have been happy together?
Because that's not the part I that's the part I
struggle with.
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell, but I
do think they they they they Yeah, they think about it,
they think about being together. I mean that's clear. Uh
and and yeah it's And I love how the film,
the film kind of like betrays you because when she says,
when when they have that scene where she's he says,
I didn't think you, you know, I didn't think you're
gonna fall in love with me or whatever. I thought
it was about them, and then then you find out
it's just And that's when you get like, Okay, this
is fucked up. What you two.
Speaker 1: What they're doing is not healthy for them emotionally. And
I guess that's what I'm getting at most here. It's
not like any therapist would have looked at that and
said you need to stop doing that. It's bad for you.
Speaker 2: But I understand why they did it.
Speaker 1: It's a very human thing.
Speaker 2: I think it's yeah, it's it's yeah, you you wanna
It's not that you. Because even if you don't practice
in reality in life, if you if you know, if
you have a spouse and you going through that situation,
you might not rehearse it, but you think about it
in your head all the time.
Speaker 1: Sure you're playing it over and over again, and they're
just playing it out exactly.
Speaker 2: So I thought it was fantastic. Actually, I was like, wow,
this is really interesting. Not healthy, probably, but interesting.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the film, she is renting
the apartment landlady had uh and she has a child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know who the father is.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I mean this goes back to I wonder
if the director Wong had originally planned that they would,
because there was originally a scene of them postcoital, if
he was originally going to imply that, but since he
opted not to, and he says in interviews that they
do not consummate, they don't even kiss. So no, that's
not his siety, which means that she stayed with It
more than likely that she stayed with her husband and
had a kid with him.
Speaker 2: Again, that's not very clear because after that point they
never mentioned where.
Speaker 1: This is what I want to point out is that
the spouses completely drop out, and this is his He
chooses to do this as a filmmaker. You make the
point about how you know that's the scene that replayed
and you thought there was something wrong with your TV.
He he wants that sort of dreamy sort of quality
where you can't quite figure out what's going on, and
I think that's very much the case. You don't know
what happened to their spouses. It's implied that she's still
with her husband. No idea what happened to his wife though,
I mean he's in Campbell at the end of the film,
no idea, no end. Very little is made of what happened,
like did he become a writer? Like did he write
more of those uh, you know serials that they were
working on that. That's the other thing. I did think
it was interesting that they they don't consummate their relationship,
but they spend all their time trying trying to write
these little stories together. And again, it's just this feeling.
There's scenes of her, very short brief shots of her
just laboring writing something out, and you can tell she's
passionate about these these types of stories. Uh, And again
it just feels like they're sublimating their own feelings. They're
they're they're not really dealing with the pain that they're feeling,
so they're just writing out these stories. They're working very
passionately on something together, and then it just goes away
and you just don't know what happens with any of it.
Speaker 2: I think the movie also does a very good job showing, uh,
how you react differently to betrayal, like because her boss
is also.
Speaker 1: I know, she's very cold to him, as she would
be I think, but she plays along well, she's kind
of choice, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it means. Very interesting. Yeah, it's very
interesting that she helps her pretty much helps her boss, you.
Speaker 1: Know, by his mistress.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the whole thing with the bags and
the ties. Oh my god, I love that. Yeah, I
just love that whole The movie is so chic, so it's.
Speaker 1: So funny to call it sheek when they're living in
like I know, essentially a tenement, the light, in the cinematography,
everything about I just love those scenes in that hallway,
that tiny, tiny, tiny little with the kitchen at the
end of it, where they're all playing with and you
can't even really that's the thing. Everything is partially obscured
in this film. You never get a full full shot,
the whole wide open view of anyone. Everything is constantly obscured.
Faces are obscured, body parts are obscured. What's actually happening
emotionally or physically in a scene is obscure. So it's
all just this very dreamy sort of opague film.
Speaker 2: But it's also playing on the whole not you know,
hiding things right, not being one hundred percent true. No,
I mean that's certain way.
Speaker 1: I had to spend all night hiding in his Oh
my god, yeah, because they were playing my song all
night and it was the neighbors couldn't find out that
it was so repressive and they were so scared. And
she says at one point, you cannot put a single
foot wrong. And I love that because again, this is
not my culture or my time period, so I have
to rely on all right, this, I guess this is
what to remember.
Speaker 2: That's the sixties in Asia. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean very traditional culture.
Speaker 2: Right. So yeah, I loved all of that.
Speaker 1: I loved it because it it showed me a world
that I am not a part of. It showed me
a lifestyle that I have never lived and will never live.
Speaker 2: If nothing else, I she's oh phenomenal. She's such an
incredible action. She dropped out of acting. I know she
made another thing. That's the thing about great acting is
that you create these amazing things, man, and you're just like,
my god, I mean, you should be very proud of
yourself because you created. Yeah, you created something beautiful, icon
of beauty, of fashion and everything. She Oh, her dress
is my god, everything one of them.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I don't think those characters could afford
to have such impact clothing. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: No, she wears a different dress in everything. She doesn't
have an apartment big enough to dresses, but it doesn't matter.
But it's funny how the neighbors point that out. They
talk about her shoes, Oh, a new pair of shoes
or whatever I mean they talk about, which I think
it's funny.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's it's very interesting because there's a hint of
of you know, social awareness and political awareness because you know,
we're talking about British Hong Kong and then and then
the United States. Her daughter moved to the United States.
The neighbor and all that stuff. It's just a little
hint of things here in there buying things in Japan,
like you know they bring the rice, you know, cooker,
all that stuff. Yeah. I just think it's very interesting,
very much of the time of the period. Beautiful, beautiful movie.
My god, it's beautiful and the music is so.
Speaker 1: No the cello, ah playing about.
Speaker 2: Love because you know it doesn't play all the time.
The cello doesn't play all the time. But when it does,
you're like, all right, we're moving again. Yes, it's like
all right, next next move Like it's like the train
is moving again to the next station. I just love it,
love it.
Speaker 1: It's a great little film. It's it's a film that
sticks with you, and I mean it could be frustrating
if you're trying to figure something out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people don't like the movie because
they think that, you know, this is it, all right, well,
this is it, this is it.
Speaker 1: It's just this dreamy sort of reflection on two people
coming together for a very brief period in their lives, right,
and not necessarily for the best of reasons, right, And
I like, I think I think people might have had
an easier time with this film if he had made
it clear that he was telling a dark story, not
a love story. But he left that to the audience
to figure out, and it seems to me very few
of them had. And I mean I copto that. I
watched that film twice thinking, oh my god, such a
beautiful love story. And it wasn't until the third time
I watched it, where I was like, oh, I don't know,
these two people are kind of fucked.
Speaker 2: Up, right, But again, we're playing into what he I
think he wanted. The message that he sends as a
director is that you know, are you are we judging
these people? Are we defending you?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I'm saying as a viewer, you have all points of
view about it, right right right, like the neighbors. So
you know, should we judge these people or should we
support them and root for them? You know, there's I
guess it depends depends on how you see betrayal, depends
on how you you know, what you think about it.
You know, how much weight you put you know, that
kind of thing anyway. Yeah, that's what I love about it.
It's up to you as the audience to feel a
certain way, to you know, and see things a certain way.
I mean, if you think that's a big deal or
not a big deal anyway, I.
Speaker 1: We would love to hear your thoughts, yes, whether you
think this was a grand love story or whether you
thought it was a story about two people in a
kind of a screwed up relationship that we're you know,
and in pain, or maybe it's not such a binary
choice either way, we'd love to hear what you think.
We'll be back on Monday or Tuesday, I'm not sure
which one, with a look at several TV series and
a recounting of our recent trip, and then we'll be
back next week for the next b k MC, where
we will be watching a film that I did not
like much the first time I saw it, which was
a Little Miss Sunshine. Until then, take care of yourself,
love you mean it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye, bry