Film Review of Fa yeung nin wa
Year: 2000 Reviewer: Chris Docker
In the Mood for Love really does deserve a few words, however inarticulate I am at 6am in the morning. A wonderfully evocative film about unfulfilled love. Set in Hong Kong about 40 years ago it brings out some of the wonder of the culture in haunting and memorable images. Maggie Cheung is utterly wonderful (as she should be by now - I understand she's made over 70 movies). Both lead characters have fantastic subtlety. Orientals generally tend to portray emotion less openly, so the nuances are a revelation. The pace of the story is also one of subtlety. Favourite tricks include leaving one scene half unexplained as to some minor detail but with our interest piqued - finding the answers as if unravelled to a casual bystander a scene or two later. (You have to concentrate - occasionally it's almost too subtle for it's own good and you wonder if you're losing the place as the oriental faces blend into each other with half-explained scenarios). Sometimes the camera perchances on a scene of hidden emotional depth and we realizes only a moment or two later that the characters were rehearsing possibilities as they work out the emotional consequences of what the future may hold. One comes out of the cinema with the feeling that one has been privileged to witness an intimacy of great beauty, a rare masterpiece.
Rating: 9/10
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