Made for Love

In his masterpiece In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai weaves together image, music, gesture, costume design, colour and space into a stylistically exceptional whole suffused with nostalgia, platonic love and melancholy. The film is now showing in a restored print, more than 20 years after its premiere.

With a trio of cinematographers, Wong created a romantic melodrama about a couple brought together by unfortunate circumstances – their partners are cheating on each other. Hong Kong stars Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung play Mrs Chan and Mr Chow, who move into neighbouring apartments on the same day. When they discover their partners' infidelity, they refuse to be like them – we follow their solitude, repeating situations, gestures and musical motifs, and the secret of their real but unfulfilled love.

The film is set in 1960s Hong Kong in extremely stylized interiors and cramped alleyways. Through a story of closeness and distance, Wong clearly alludes to Hong Kong's political situation and its transitional status – in 2046, fifty years after the British handover of the island to China, everything may be subject to change. He further developed this theme in a film titled 2046. Given Hong Kong's recent events, this melancholic song about love and finality can be felt even more powerfully than before.