IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE — CANNES 2000

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Where Secrets Are Kept

Wong Kar Wai Tells All

By Cole Smithey

"That era has passed. Nothing that belonged to it exists anymore."

Wong Kar Wai's masterpiece of romantic longing, emotional expression, unrequited love, and unresolved jealousy, is a cinematic poem that stretches across time and Asian social barriers.

The film's indisputable beauty radiates with a burning glow that emanates from its charismatic lead actors, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. 

Set in Hong Kong, circa 1962, shared experience of wounded romantic repression plays out between neighbors whose spouses are sharing an affair.

The Korean War rages distant to our would-be lovers. Love is always an escape from loneliness.

A mutual decision to play out an imagined version of their spouse's affair, gives way to a simmering erotic tension barely masked by gesture, habit, and style.

Formality, dignity, and respect are unwritten rules of the couple's sexless romantic game of curiosity.

Every atmosphere is furtive.

Secrets are kept.

Erotically tinged gemstone colors explode in carefully crafted set designs and wardrobe elements that bleed off smoke from the burning chemistry between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.

Hollywood should be jealous, very jealous.

By this standard, Hollywood knows nothing of nuance.

The early '60s political and economic atmosphere of Hong Kong informs the way that Wong Kar Wai's iconic couple interact.

Public appearances are kept up.

Erotic sparks can ignite from a spoonful of mustard shared at a restaurant table.

Lust is secondary, but just barely.

The intimate negotiation that transpires between our star-crossed lovers takes place in an aura of negative space where things such as wallpaper designs and dress patterns set boundaries of sexual restraint.

There is a BDSM undertow to the couple's interactions. Theirs is a private code told in silences, and muted responses that no lie detector could catch.

Although the film's ending feels rushed, it speaks to the audience as a cauterizing effort at mirroring the disjointed fragmentation of quickly passing time and far lost promise.

Memories are lasting, especially when the romantic stakes are so deep.

The film's impeccable soundtrack places the characters in an era of Big Band music whose standards fueled a utopic atmosphere of charm, class, and romantic connection.

You'll be humming Nat King Cole's version of "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas" for days, and nights after seeing this film.

"In The Mood For Love" was an instant classic when it premiered at Cannes in 2000. It remains Wong Kar Wai's finest cinematic achievement.

In the words of Lou Reed, "you're over the hill, right now."

Relax, the romantic pressure is over.

Memories are all that's left in a lover's memory box.

Tear up the letters; they don't prove anything.

Keep your secrets.

Rated PG. 98 mins.

THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY

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Mixing Menus —
Overdo Foodie Movie Arrives With the Hallström Seal

The foodie romance genre has been oddly absent from American cinema lately. It’s been five long years since "Julie & Julia" made audiences think about French cuisine vis a vis Julia Childs and a blogger on a mission to cook her way though Childs's first book.

“Ratatouille” (2007) reminded audiences about their taste buds in an animated kids’ movie that arrived the same year that Catherine Zeta-Jones bumped uglies with Aaron Eckhart in a pleasing little food flick entitled “No Reservations.”

Any short list of foodie movies is sure contain Lasse Hallström’s charming filmic appetizer “Chocolat” (2000), in which Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp awaken each other’s passions in a small French village where Binoche’s character opens a chocolate shop. Yum.

Returning to a provincial French location, Hallström’s second foray into the cinema-of-food effectively makes him an honorary chairman of the genre’s board of directors.

The director behind such food-tinged titles as “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and “The Cider House Rules” cut his teeth making music videos for ABBA in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Famous for his wonderful use of suffused lighting to evoke nostalgic moods (think “My Life as a Dog” or “An Unfinished Life”), Hallström presents beautiful compositions that lend themselves to mouth-watering depictions of cuisine — in this case, from India and France. Exotic spices from India do indeed harmonize with traditional French dishes on the screen. As the saying goes, “you can almost taste it.”

Even if its romantic tension gets muddled and the film’s pacing and editing go out the window in the third act, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” manages to connect its head, heart, and stomach via solid ensemble performances, led by reliable pros Helen Mirren and Om Puri. Still, lust gets short shrift amid a competition that develops between the story’s young pair of cooking lovers.

After escaping tragedy in Mumbai, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) and his family realize their dream of recreating their deceased mother’s highly revered cooking. The family opens an Indian restaurant in a quaint French village — the kind you see on postcards. When it comes to preparing familiar or unacquainted dishes, Hassan is a natural in the kitchen.

French-local Marguerite earns a place in Hassan’s heart and stomach. Hassan wants Marguerite to teach him about French cuisine. It doesn’t hurt that newcomer Charlotte Le Bon has an adorable overbite and heartbreaking eyes. Marguerite’s cooking’s isn’t bad either, but she isn’t as skilled as Hassan at interpreting and elevating traditional dishes. Herein springs the chefs’ competition that variously derails the groovy attraction between Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon — however compelling the couple is on screen together.

Both Dayal and Le Bon give inspired performances worthy of promising futures. 

The allure between Marguerite and Hassan is further complicated by her employment as a sous-chef-in-training at the Michelin-awarded classic French cuisine restaurant that sits 100 feet across the road from Hassan’s festive Indian-themed place — as enhanced by loud traditional music and colorful lighting.

Helen Mirren’s Madame Mallory lords over her restaurant’s coveted two Michelin stars as though they were her children. Everyday in her kitchen is a learning clinic for her more than willing staff. The imperious Lady Mallory takes umbrage toward the rival restaurant’s threat to her closely guarded establishment. She sabotages the Kadam family’s restaurant with a multi-pronged attack. She’s not above buying up all the stock of certain foods from the local farmers’ market or filing nuisance complaints with the town mayor.

The clash of cultures, combined with the threat of economic loss, incites one of Madame Mallory’s loyal chefs to commit a racist act of violence against the Kadams. However, the plot movement doesn’t develop enough to support, or resolve, the politically and racially charged subplot as it unfolds. The movie temporarily gets out of its depth before snapping back into place. The third act is a mess, but that’s another story.  

Screenwriter Steven Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things”) tries to do too much. He wants the film to be part cultural polemic, part foodie heaven, part romantic love story, and part family film. It’s not that any of these elements needed to be mutually exclusive, but that they should fulfill the demands of the foodie movie genre.

You’ll get a sensory charge from Lasse Hallström’s signature visual treatment of delicious plates, bowls, and pans of beautiful dishes made of fresh ingredients. Still, the film could have worked better if Knight would have stuck to a simpler formula. Romance, sex, and food go together like a knife, fork, and spoon. The author’s stretch to make a bland political statement, while conforming to the demands of a “PG-rating,” left no room for the “sex” part of the equation. For that kind of thing, check out Fina Torres’s “Woman on Top” (2000), starring Penélope Cruz as a Brazilian chef who moves to San Francisco. Hot, hot, hot.

Rated PG. 122 mins.

MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

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Prolific But Redundant
Woody’s Same Old Song and Dance

Woody Allen has mastered the art of making the same trivial film over and over again. His “Blue Jasmine”-experiment was an exception that resulted in an utter failure of tone. Part of the problem was Cate Blanchett’s powerhouse performance, which outshined the undeserving script beneath her.

For “Magic in the Moonlight,” Allen once again features a scenic foreign location (the French Riviera in this case) where an older man falls for and woos a younger woman. The man is Colin Firth’s ‘20s-era stage magician and hoax-exposer Stanley Crawford (aka Wei Ling-soo). Stanley’s Asian stage persona is a Fu Manchu-styled illusionist who cuts women in half and transports his body across the stage unseen.

Stanley’s old friend and less talented fellow magician Howard (Simon McBurney) visits him backstage after a successful performance. Howard asks Stanley to accompany him to the south of France to expose the fraud of a young female psychic named Sophie (Emma Stone) who travels with her business agent mother (Marcia Gay Harden).

Sophie has cast her hex over a wealthy family from Pittsburgh now living in France. Sophie serves as the family's psychic-in-residence. She holds séances complete with mysterious knocks and floating candles. Stanley arrives under the pseudonym Taplinger to engage in taking the fake psychic's inventory and exposing her deceit. Despite his earnest but snotty attempts to crack Sophie’s deceptions, Stanley falls for her young feminine charms and clairvoyant powers — hook, line, and sinker.

Allen coasts through the breezy storyline with frequent detours to familiar territories. A sudden downpour traps Stanley and Sophie inside an observatory where they bond romantically. Never mind that the lovestruck and wealthy Brice (Hamish Linklater) is looking to marry Sophie. Brice can’t stop singing songs to her on his ukulele.

There are a few laugh-inducing bits that pop in Allen’s nostalgia-filled romance fantasy, but not enough to say that the movie works as a comedy, much less as a farce of any weight. Just as with other late-period Woody Allen films (think "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," "Match Point," or "Scoop"), “Magic in the Moonlight” is a cinematic amuse-bouche. It’s satisfying if you’re not yet tired of Woody Allen’s rubber-stamped comedies.

Allen’s knack for dialogue is still alive, but there is no freshness to his work. Social commentary is absent. Allen goes through the motions of reconfiguring his pet storyline into something new yet redundant. It's a fine style of cinema for older audiences, but not so exciting to modern moviegoers. If, however, you've stuck with Woody Allen over the years since his impressive debut films in the '70s, you'll be sorely disappointed. It's been a long time since "Husbands and Wives" (1992), Allen's last great movie.

Allen has evidently chosen to spend his final days making easy — read lazy — movies to pay the bills. Woody Allen’s low-impact cinema allows for enticing performances from Emma Stone and Colin Firth even if their characters’ arcs are so minimal as to be entirely neglected. Nevertheless, the Riviera’s celebrated sunlight makes you feel like you’re on a mini-vacation. There isn’t much magic left in Woody’s moon, but the sun in the south of France has the final say.

Rated PG-13. 97 mins.