maybe, just maybe

Jeffrey 2022-03-23 09:01:42

"In the Mood for Love" is said to have been filmed for 15 months, and the feature film cut out only takes about 90 minutes. One can't help but wonder what this comrade Wang Sunglasses is doing? Except for a few old sites in Hong Kong and Thailand, and a few scenes in Cambodia, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung spent most of the time 1) chatting in the aisle, 2) speaking cautiously on the phone, 3) Talking side by side while eating steak in the restaurant, 4) talking covertly while eating noodles in Liang’s house, 5) talking in the restaurant room 2046, 6) watching the rain under the eaves of the roadside sadly To speak... When there is no longer a chance to speak, there is only loneliness. It's no wonder that there will be a certain spicy artist who will never accept the old man, claiming that if she is the director, she can stop work in two days - although the tone is loud, it is well-founded, after all, our movie circle is rich in various talents. Famous for being weird.
The problem is that the plot of Comrade Sunglasses' films has always been overwhelmed by sentiment, and it is also about the Shanghainese circle in Hong Kong in the old days, with a three-dimensional packaging, a twisted snail shell, and the hazy and Ambiguity, if you want to describe it properly, it takes a lot of time to boil it; it is not difficult to create a relationship with real swords and guns, and it is a test of skill. The method used in this film is: anyway, the two people only appeared in the back and the voice, so let the two people play. The advantage of this is that at first it is clear to the viewer that what the two people are doing is actually imagining the two people, but gradually the line becomes blurred, so that it is almost difficult to identify what the two people are doing. Are you playing those two people, or the two people themselves, or even two people in another situation imagined by the two people. In the section of sheltering from the rain under the eaves, what Zhou Muyun said to Su Lizhen is a 100% confession of love in other romance films, but this film still has to be discounted a little: the first time is a gentle breakup, Faint words, leaving gently, only eyes, no tears; the second time I came back, it was an emotional breakup, no words, only crying, crying until my whole body was shaking. Which of these two scenarios is true, false, superior, inferior, right or wrong? Or was it just what one of them had in mind that actually never happened?
"Don't be stupid, just talk. Don't cry, it's not true..."
Of course, playfulness can sometimes go wrong, and the detached narrative can easily lead the story to a dead end. From the second act of the film, the thread of the story becomes mottled, sometimes even incomprehensible. Harshly speaking, there are some doubts as follows:
A) Cigarettes. Su Lizhen went to Singapore and visited Zhou Muyun's residence (Zhou was not there). She picked up the cigarette case he had placed on the table, took out one, lit it, and smoked half--a very abrupt move from a theatrical point of view. There has never been a scene showing Su Lizhen touching a cigarette before; if she was expressing a certain mood, she should have smoked before, and most likely it was his.
B) Slippers. Same background as above. These embroidered slippers were left by Su when they were blocked in Zhou Muyun's room. In Singapore, Su did three things: smoked half a cigarette, made a phone call to Zhou's newspaper, and took the shoes. When Zhou answered the phone, Su Lizhen didn't say a word, so what she wanted to express should be contained in her actions: smoking is probably a memory of the past, and taking this pair of shoes shows her determination. But the problem is that this determination lacks an effective transition or explanation - if the decision is made in Hong Kong, why bother to go to Singapore? If it is a decision made after coming to Singapore, where is the last straw?
C) Abing. This kind of mediocre and lustful soy sauce brothers often play the role of threading the needle. Zhou Muyun's family crisis, the sesame paste incident, and his departure from Singapore, A Bing's role is actually heavier than the landlord played by Pan Dihua. There is no need to say much about Bing's rivalry with Zhou, but there is a sense of lack of play between Bing and Su Lizhen, especially after Zhou went to Singapore, A Bing should be the only channel for Su Lizhen to know Zhou Muyun's current situation. Personally, I think that A Bing's affair can even continue to the end of the play.
D) Boss. Regarding Su Lizhen's boss, Mr. He, less drama is not a problem, it's bad to have a head and no tail. Boss He is very old and has a close relationship with a certain Miss Yu. As a secretary, Su naturally sends letters and runs errands, and occasionally brings Yuanyuan lies, but the strange thing is that this branch suddenly disappeared and never happened again. was brought up. According to the usual structure, the landlord, Mrs. Sun, and the boss, Mr. He, are both inside and outside. One is capable and the other is cautious and sensitive, and will be aware of some subtle changes in Su Lizhen's behavior. Sun Taidang made some remarks in the face of Su, and the yellow card was displayed unceremoniously, but Boss He disappeared from the side - there should be some explanation, right?
E) Angkor Wat. In the chat between Zhou Muyun and A Bing, he talked about the ultimate meditation method: make a tree, dig a hole, and pour the words in your heart into it. But why Angkor Wat? Why confide in stone instead of wood as originally mentioned? Why no token? ——Su Lizhen took away a pair of shoes anyway, so Zhou Muyun just picked a stone pillar with a hole, and then smashed it with mud and straw?
F) Charles de Gaulle. Occasionally admit that he has poor historical knowledge, but the documentary of Mr. Dai (Mr. Gao Le?) visiting Cambodia is really puzzling: what is the relationship between the French boss and a frustrated couple in Hong Kong? Symbolize the end of an era? But isn't this just a petty bourgeois work that plays with sentimentality? It's so grandiose. Could it be because you want to participate in the Cannes Film Festival? Tony Leung is not Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung is not teenage Jane March.
Back then when I walked out of the theater with these doubts in my head, I just felt confused. I had to wait until the DVD with relatively complete content appeared, and then I felt that it would be dark and bright, because most of the answers were thrown into the deletion scene. These shots are arranged in four-act scenes, basically answering questions.
Act 1, The Secret of Room 2046: (The first part of the mock peach drama is too unpleasant, go down a bit) The two still stepped on the red line in the end. Before stepping on it, with the sound of rain outside the window, Su Lizhen asked Zhou Muyun for a cigarette.
Act 2, Postcards: There is a lot of information that has been cut out in this section, and if all were reverted back to the original film, the story set in Singapore would be very complete.
Zhou Muyun sent a postcard to the landlord Mrs. Sun from the Lion City, but at the same time ordered the first Zhou Xuan song for Su Lizhen, who was celebrating her birthday, through the radio (this is different from the main film, in the main film, Su Lizhen's husband ordered her in Japan) , can it be understood as the prodigal son looking back to reunite?).
Miss Yu, who was in the cardamom age, appeared for the first time to find Mr. He. The two of them hugged each other and cried a lot. It is estimated that they are going to fly away to study abroad. Su later asked the boss: (Miss Yu's matter) Don't you regret it? Boss He replied: I gave her this opportunity myself, and I have no regrets.
Then Mr. He handed Secretary Su a ferry ticket to Singapore and asked her to relax.
Unsurprisingly, when Su Lizhen arrived in Singapore, the first person she contacted was Ah Bing. When the two were eating at the stall, A Bing showed off his love history to Su, but the following conversation seemed to be common to both parties:
Su: Have you ever thought about chasing her (A Bing's secret crush) back?
Bing: What are you chasing, you are already married.
Su: Then you are still here (Singapore)?
Bing: It's good to have a look. It is also a heartbreaker.
Sometimes I think about it, in fact, this is not bad, I can do what I want, and I don't necessarily have to be together. what do you say?
After the dinner, Su Guan Zhaobing, don't tell him I've been here.
I see.
Act 3, Hong Kong in the 1970s: What has been abridged here is actually another version of the story. In the feature film, the landlord, Mrs. Sun, went to the United States to take her grandson and handed over the house in Hong Kong to Su Lizhen. Su Sheng has a son who does not live with her husband. The latter's condition is unknown (Su's ring is always worn on the middle finger of his right hand, which does not seem to be a clue). Zhou Muyun came to Hong Kong by chance to visit Mr. Gu, the former landlord, who was wrong, asked the new resident about the situation of Mrs. Sun's house next door, and was told that there lived a woman and a child. Zhou Bao smiled wryly and turned to leave.
In the deleted version, it seems that Mrs. Sun's house was transferred to Su Lizhen, and Su Yi planned to sell the house and immigrate to Canada with her husband and children. Zhou Muyun's new girlfriend learned from A Bing that there was such an old love history, and came to the door to knock on the side and make trouble. Maybe it's because I'm suspicious, I always feel that Zhou's new girlfriend is very close to a certain actress in image, I don't know if it's intentional).
Shangqiongbi falls to Huangquan, and may not be able to pass by.
Act 4, the encounter between the two at Angkor Wat: Only with this passage can we explain why Zhou Muyun confided his thoughts to a stone in Cambodia. As a symbol of paying homage to the past, he put a heart-shaped pendant from Su Lizhen's coat into the cracks of Angkor Wat, and then poured all his thoughts into it.
After watching the four-act episode, a strong dissatisfaction arises spontaneously. The scenes in Acts 1, 2 and 4 are an integral part of the whole story, and the director actually manages to use the scissors? After thinking about it, Comrade Sunglasses has been in the arena for many years, and he is just playing with nothingness. He really made the relationship between the two people clear, plain and clear. How can he reflect the style of a generation of literary film masters?
I vaguely remember that when I watched this film in the cinema more than ten years ago, some Obasans in the back row asked, "Do these two have any?" Taking what you need may be the true meaning of art cinema: A sees a costume show, B sees an indecent love, C sees an old style, and D sees a group of people dangling on the screen go with.
Then a bunch of cheongsam shops sprang up along the road like bamboo shoots after the rain, and then you would see people wearing colorful cheongsam walking on the long street shaded by the plane trees. In the stomach area, the eyebrows are slightly frowned, and the effect may be better.
My viewing standards have always been below the average, so those bright and sunny things in art films have never been understood. When it comes to this film, my uncle just came to see people: Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, the two most brilliant actors in Hong Kong in the 1990s, in 90 minutes, they spoke softly, exquisitely and clearly, and the clouds were light and clear. It is worth mentioning that, in the tidbits of the DVD, I stumbled upon a scene where the two danced together: without any words, as long as the eyes are lightly touched, it seems that there is a bright candle in the heart. Thinking about gossip a little, inside and outside the screen, dreaming of life, at the end of the abridged version of the film, Zhou Muyun and Su Lizhen talked about the unremarkable brother A Bing in the promenade of Angkor Wat. But these two, in the end, are alone, strangers in life. The flock will always be driven into the sea, for the world will finally be handed over to stones.

View more about In the Mood for Love reviews

Extended Reading
  • Norwood 2022-03-26 09:01:04

    Unanswered calls, unasked words. This protracted ambiguity finally disappeared as the secret took root in the cave.

  • Enrico 2022-03-21 09:01:42

    The actor's acting skills are very good. Maggie Cheung has changed a lot of cheongsams. It looks very good. The way she walks in cheongsam, her expression, and her gestures are very delicate.

In the Mood for Love quotes

  • Chow Mo-wan: It's me. If there's an extra ticket... would you go with me?

    Su Li-zhen Chan: It's me. If there's an extra ticket... would you go with me?

  • Su Li-zhen Chan: Am I hopeless?

    Chow Mo-wan: Not really.