Happy Together + In the Mood for Love

I'm in the Mood for Love – The body and desire in Wong Kar Wai's cinema

Between desire and “heartbreak”, we cannot forget the characters of Wong Kar Wai, ordinary people “on the verge of love or perfect solitude” [Manuel Gusmão], who hypnotize us in the “prodigious elegance in which they move” in films that hold us by enchantment. The secrets and dreams, the colors, the music, a camera that is also a “body”, the “mise en abîme” and the extraordinary use of “slow motion” as a response to speed and oblivion, create unique environments that seduce and move us, which ravish our soul. The director is inspired by literature (Murakami or the Latin American Manuel Puig – the fragmented narrative, the multiple points of view), by the music of Nat King Cole, by the Turtles, and others, by films. Love encounters and disagreements, with their mysteries and contradictions, regret for the mistakes committed, a bittersweet loneliness, the memories that love leaves behind when it disappears, imagination as the engine of desire, an eroticism that becomes even more powerful when it is not concretize. On the 14th of February, we revisit this singular and vertiginous work, awarded several prizes at the most important film festivals in two of its most important films, digitally restored under the supervision of the director: Happy Together and In the Mood for Love.


19:00 — Felizes Juntos / Happy Together
by Wong Kar Wai

Happy Together is a whirlwind romance that earned Wong Kar Wai the Best Director Award at Cannes. Two lovers leave for Buenos Aires and there they try to rebuild their relationship.


21:30 — Disponível para Amar / In the Mood for Love
de Wong Kar Wai

In the Mood for Love is a love story between neighbors who find themselves betrayed, immediately elevated to the category of a masterpiece, and which has not lost (on the contrary) a millimeter of its brilliance over the years. A profound study of chance, emptiness and loneliness, accompanied by Shigeru Umebayashi's melancholic soundtrack, is Wong Kar Wai's most emblematic and impressive work.