#Hidden flowers setphanie movie

(In a New York Times Magazine interview, Cheung said she became so frustrated working with Wong that she swore she'd never do so again - until she saw how beautifully the movie turned out.) Wong directs his actors beautifully, although the gentle two-steps-forward, four-back restraint he summons from them must have made him maddening to work with. Tendrils of cigarette smoke hang in the air between the lovers like specters of possibilities the corridors of the hotel where they meet - not to sleep together but to discuss the martial-arts story Chow is working on - look both lively and lonely, the clashing patterns of curtains, wallpaper and tile floor a mismatched surprise. Credited to two cinematographers - Mark Li Ping-bin and Wong's frequent collaborator, Christopher Doyle - 'In the Mood for Love' looks period-perfect and yet also exists in a romantic nowheresville beyond any real time or place. Almost every frame is buffed to a subtle romantic glow.

Wong's Hong Kong streets, often slicked with rain, and color-patchwork interiors have a glistening, dreamy look. They take breaks from their friendship, but as time goes on, it falls into a gentle if slightly irregular rhythm, a loping ballad in 5/4 where the extra beat is the thing that sets them apart from all the other lovers in the world. She doesn't feel the two of them should behave as badly as their spouses have. But when Chow pushes forward ever so slightly, Su retreats, mostly out of a sense of honor. They become cautious friends, and it's clear they're both considering the possibility of falling in love with each other. Shocked and hurt, they discuss the situation in an almost businesslike way, despite the fact that miniature galaxies of feeling have already passed between them in their furtive glances. The two barely speak until Chow realizes that their respective spouses are having an affair. They pass on the stairs of the local noodle shop, barely glancing at each other, partly out of propriety and partly out of embarrassment, as if each hopes to scurry away secretly with his or her takeout dinner without wearing the loneliness of it as a symbol. Both find themselves forced into the role of being on-again, off-again solitary people, deprived of the luxury of settling comfortably into the rhythm of life with one other person.

That same day Chow Mo-wan (Leung), a journalist whose wife is also away much of the time, moves into a room down the hall. Su Li-zhen (Cheung), a young wife whose husband is almost perpetually away on business, takes a room in the apartment of Mrs. The potent glances that pass between the two lovers, played by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, and even just the way the actors move, are enough to carry you. As with his gorgeous 1995 'Chungking Express,' it's not always possible to figure out exactly what's going on in 'In the Mood for Love' - but then, that's not really necessary. Wong is by no means a linear director he prefers latticelike structures, nets of visuals and sound that allow us to scoop up bits of information like shimmery fish. It has its own kind of energy and life, and if you sit quietly enough, you can almost hear it thrumming. It's a reassurance that love never simply goes 'nowhere,' dissipating like perfume in the air. But when the movie's over you feel that it has taken you somewhere, that it has given shape and tone and texture to a love that hasn't even had a chance to breathe in the real world. Where does love go when two people who feel a mad attraction to each other never act on it? Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai's 'In the Mood for Love' is less a movie than a dream meditation on the nature of love that never steps into the light.

Hidden flowers setphanie