Platonic yet Romantic
Before reading this piece, I urge everyone to watch the movie In The Mood For Love. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not viewing it.
I watched this movie a week ago. After my uninterrupted viewing of this movie, I was filled with a myriad of emotions. Rather than confront these emotions, I let them simmer. I let them simmer until it hit me like a ton of bricks. I do not know why I got so deeply invested in the fates of the two protagonists. Mr.Chow and Mrs.Chan are both married and both discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Instead of confronting their respective spouses, they begin a personal reenactment. Concocting a web of demonstrations of how the infidelity arose. How did it start? Who made the first move? What motivated them? As their meetings increased, so did their fondness for each other. They fell victim to the same treacherous sin that they swore they would not succumb to.
The third act of this movie is torturous to sit through. A series of ill-timed meetings between the two prove to be fatal to the viewer. On more than one occasion I clasped my phone as a coping mechanism. The protagonists use each other trying to forget the betrayal of the ones they love most. The ones who swore loyalty to them. Although this relationship was conceived through selfishness, it subsequently became a selfless companionship. This transition was seamless and the director and actors deserve all the credit. Despite this evolution of the protagonists, they were still hindered by the times they lived in.Their longing for each other conceded to the constraints of 1960s Hong Kong. It’s a melancholic movie of what could have been that fell victim to what is.
Three missed encounters summarize this movie. Mrs.Chan narrowly misses Mr.Chow as he makes his way to Singapore. A second encounter of where a stained cigarette at Mr.Chow’s apartment confirms Mrs.Chan’s visit in Singapore. The third and most agonizing encounter is Mr.Chow’s visit to his old landlords. Finding out his landlords moved, he inquires about the neighbors Mrs.Suen. He is informed that she has also moved to the United States and that a woman now lives there with her son. Unbeknownst to him, it is Mrs.Chan who now lives there. Mr.Chan contemplated one last look at the neighbors door. At this moment, I implored him to knock. Unfortunately, he did not and so they eluded each other once again.
It made me think about how we all invent a fantasy because our reality fails to satisfy us. Mr.Chow and Mrs.Chang begin a pretense of finding out a truth, about how an affair was initiated. When in reality they long for what their spouses found. A sense of belonging. They consequently find it but it proves to be something deeper than they anticipated. While they try to come to terms with it, fate would prove to be an obstruction. This is what made the film so unique. Rather than the characters faltering to make a move, it was rather fate who objected. This made for a subdued atmosphere in the film. Sometimes when something doesn’t come to fruition, it’s not the fault of anybody. It’s the result of circumstances. The protagonists don’t dwell on this, they reconcile with this. This grounded the film and made for a plot that remains modest yet moving. Although they may look back on the past with sadness, they don’t let that bleed into their lives.
The most poignant moment in the movie is the last scene. This is when Mr.Chow confides his secret into a tree. The secret of him and Mrs.Chan. I found this extremely moving because it illustrates how much this secret plagued him. How heavy must this secret have been, that it burdened him for all these years. He makes an arduous journey to the mountains just to whisper to a tree. It is a lengthy confession. While some might see this as Mr.Chang moving on from that eventful period in his life, I had a different perspective. I saw it as Mr.Chang liberating himself from the chains of the secret. Mr.Chow speaking about the experience actualized it and showcased the magnitude of the confession. It was so treasured to him that he couldn’t tell a human because that ran the risk of polluting his love. As he finishes telling the tree, he covers the hollow with mud. This signalled to me that the secret not only remains alive but might also thrive inside a tree. The same way their love lives on in that tree, so will my first viewing of this film, in these words.
