this is the voice of re:mote induction.Friday, November 14, 2003
in the mood for love - i was sure i had a tape of chungking express somewhere, but thanks to recent rearrangements and the fact that i might have been imagining it, i couldn't find it. so that left with the choice of fallen angel or in the mood for love. in the mood for love wins out from that selection, at least in this mood, it is so sumptious.
reading quicksilver by stephenson at the moment, and the current character daniel waterhouse is having a conversation about negative space with a dutch man. and it strikes me watching in the mood for love that the idea of negative space extends to film, especially films like this one. where to the casual observer it might appear that there is nothing there, while in reality it is the spaces between there that we are looking into. the slow motion movements, the glances, the encounters in noodle bars, all to that cello heavy soundtrack. the way that the partners of the two leads are the reason things are happening, but are never seen - their voices might be present in scenes here or there, but wong kar-wai very deliberately creates a negative space around these people. with this space comes the realisation by the two leads that there missing partners are actually with each other.
unfortunately i was 10 minutes or so from the end of the film when my computer crashed. a little annoying, especially with the time of night it was. but for those that don't know, in the mood for love is the most recent film by reknowned hong-kong director wong kar-wai (i know there were other films in the works, but i'm not conscious of any having been released yet... at least not with subtitles). the film is set in hong kong in the mid to late 60's. two couples move into the spare rooms of two neighbouring families. but from the start we only ever see mrs chan and mr chow - the partners are always abroad on business or working late. this leaves the visible two circling around the same space aimlessly. casual conversations lead to compared notes and confirmations of suspicions. from there the two try to understand how their partners infidelity came about, as though comprehending will mean it makes sense. instead they start to discover feelings for each other, which they resist in a desperate bid not to become as bad as there other halves.
a definitely striking and memorable piece with so much visual work and suggestion.
reading quicksilver by stephenson at the moment, and the current character daniel waterhouse is having a conversation about negative space with a dutch man. and it strikes me watching in the mood for love that the idea of negative space extends to film, especially films like this one. where to the casual observer it might appear that there is nothing there, while in reality it is the spaces between there that we are looking into. the slow motion movements, the glances, the encounters in noodle bars, all to that cello heavy soundtrack. the way that the partners of the two leads are the reason things are happening, but are never seen - their voices might be present in scenes here or there, but wong kar-wai very deliberately creates a negative space around these people. with this space comes the realisation by the two leads that there missing partners are actually with each other.
unfortunately i was 10 minutes or so from the end of the film when my computer crashed. a little annoying, especially with the time of night it was. but for those that don't know, in the mood for love is the most recent film by reknowned hong-kong director wong kar-wai (i know there were other films in the works, but i'm not conscious of any having been released yet... at least not with subtitles). the film is set in hong kong in the mid to late 60's. two couples move into the spare rooms of two neighbouring families. but from the start we only ever see mrs chan and mr chow - the partners are always abroad on business or working late. this leaves the visible two circling around the same space aimlessly. casual conversations lead to compared notes and confirmations of suspicions. from there the two try to understand how their partners infidelity came about, as though comprehending will mean it makes sense. instead they start to discover feelings for each other, which they resist in a desperate bid not to become as bad as there other halves.
a definitely striking and memorable piece with so much visual work and suggestion.
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