“I keep what I can of you; split-second glimpses and snapshots and sounds.”
– The National
In the Mood for Love begins with a title card, a tidy explanation of the drama to come. “It is a restless moment,” the film informs us. “She has kept her head lowered to give him a chance to come closer. But he could not, for lack of courage. She turns and walks away.”
It is an odd description of a film narrative, odder still in its inclusion before the film it describes. The words seem to describe a slight, likely inconsequential interaction, a momentary meeting of two bodies in transit. And indeed, attempting to describe the overt drama of In the Mood for Love almost necessarily results in such a dismissive summary, for the film is largely about things that almost happen, futures that might have been. In the Mood for Love is a film of lingering feelings hanging in narrow hallways, of dreams unspoken until their hope of fulfillment has long passed, of words that flash in the eyes but never pass the lips. It is precisely measured in its form, achingly romantic in its substance, and ultimately ephemeral in its passage. It is the essence of love unfulfilled.