In the Mood for Love - French Impressionist Cinema

Today, I would like to discuss about French Impressionist Cinema, which also called as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde. It is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers in 1920s. After World War I, French filmmaking never fully recovered. The industry tried to recapture the audience by imitate Hollywood production methods and genres. Then, they emerged a movement which is Impressionism that consist of young directors such as Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L’Herbier and Jean Epstein.

French Impressionist Cinema is a movement popular from 1919 to 1928. It explores psychological causes of the film. It gives the narration considerable psychological depth and revealing play of the character’s consciousness. It also concerns about the mental state of characters, either is in dreams or fantasies. This impressionist manipulates plot time and subjectivity by showing the flashbacks or memories in film. There is some visual depiction of metal states via cinematography and editing, which are use of irises, distorted visuals, point of view (POV) editing and camera movement. The filmmakers use irises, superimpositions and masks to indicate the characters’ thought and feeling. The visuals are distorted or filtered or vertiginous the camera movement to show the effect of dizzy or drunkenness in film. POV and rhythmic editing are used in film to show the experiences of particular situations of characters. In French Impressionist Cinema, camera movement is smooth. It can be brought about by frame mobility. For example, the camera can be tied to cars, wheels, bobsleds or cables. Unfortunately, French Impressionist Cinema was trigged off slowly due to lack of interests by mass and also rising of cost of production.

(Source: http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/ab3219/in_the_mood_for_love.jpg)

In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar Wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. It is a love story between Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung). In Hong Kong in 1926, Chow Mo Wan, a journalist, rents a room in an apartment of a building with his wife. On the same day, Su Li Zhen, a secretary from a shipping company, rents another room next to him with her husband. They become next-door neighbours. Then, they find out that their spouses having an affair with each other spouses. This is where they begin their delicate relationship.

According to David Bordwell’s theory, French Impressionist Cinema can be shown in four main aspects which are camerawork, mise-en-scene, optical devices and characteristic editing patterns. As I mentioned above, French Impressionist Cinema focuses on exploring the psychological causes of the film. That means the film shows the audience what actually the characters think and feel. In the film, In the Mood for Love, there is several scenes that showing the mental states of character via cinematography and editing. The director, Wong Kar Wai, uses the irises, superimpositions, and masks to indicate characters’ thought and feeling. For example, in the scene where Su Li Zhen (as “Su”) finally receives a phone call from Chow Mo Wan (as “Chow”) who disappeared for a few days, then she goes to meet him at the hotel room that Chow rents before so that they can work together on the martial arts serial for the newspaper without attract attention from others neighbours. This particular scene has some shot that shows the character’s feeling. When Su is on her way to meet Chow, there is a close up of her in the car to show her expressions. She looks very eager and anxious. Another part is when Su reaches the hotel, and she goes up the stairs then goes down then goes up again. This editing shows Su is struggling whether she wants to go to meet Chow or not. It also emphasizes her eagerness in this particular scene.

Besides, mise-en-scene also plays an important role in this film. In the scene where Chow is smoking in his office, the audience see him from back first then the camera will focus on the smoke that drift above him. The visuals are edited to show the sense of dizzy of character. The smoke represents Chow’s annoyance. His mind is cloudy like the smoke as the relationship of Su and him is unclear and complicated. It is a visual communication with audiences.

There are number of POV editing and rhythmic editing to show character’s experiences. The scene when Su goes to buy noodles at the noodles stall and Chou eats noodles at the same stall. This shows that they are both lonely person who do their things alone and eat alone without accompany of their spouses. Another one is when Su cannot go to meet with Chou for a period as her has warned by the house owner. She has no choice but to pretend to join the mah-jong game among the neighbourhood. This scene goes in slow motion to show that this is a hard time for Su. Time goes slowly, she is not enjoying the mah-jong game but she has to pretend to look happy. All these scenes are accompanied by the background music, Yumeji's Theme. It makes those scenes look like repetitive and similar.

In this film, the director also manipulates plot time and subjectivity which is flashbacks and memories. The scene where Chou is looking for something in his apartment in Singapore but he cannot find the thing he wants. Then he saw a lipstick stained cigarette butt in his ashtray. The actual timeline is Su goes to Singapore and visit Chow’s apartment secretly. Then she smokes a cigarette, that’s why the lipstick stained cigarette comes from. Then she calls Chow, who is working for a Singaporean newspaper, but she remains silent when Chow picks up the phone. She takes away the slipper that she left in Chow’s Hong Kong apartment last time when she leaves. This is the reason why Chow is desperately searching for something in his room at first. He is looking for Su’s slipper that he brings along to Singapore from Hong Kong as a momento.

In conclusion, the director, Wong Kar Wei, uses a lot of techniques to show the psychological and mental of characters. He uses a different way to interpret the love story between Chow Mo Wan and Su Li Zhen. He focuses on the spouses that being cheated compared to the cheating one. They don’t even show up the face. Even today, when a director wants to show a character’s feeling in some abnormal state of mind, French Impressionist techniques of camerawork and editing which are the blurred imagery, superimposition, slow motion, accelerating cutting and etc. are used.