Wong Kar Wai is the master of melancholy. The Hong Kong filmmaker’s moody, visually sumptuous movies are drenched in romantic longing. The apex of this preoccupation just might be the aptly titled In the Mood for Love (2000), Wong’s 98-minute love letter to 1960s Hong Kong in which two immaculately dressed neighbors (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung), both victims of cheating spouses, form a clandestine bond marked by the aching absence of physical consummation.
Those interested in convention narratives best look elsewhere — In the Mood for Love is an ambiguous, endlessly eye-pleasing mediation on loneliness and disconnection in which time and space get lost in the unique rhythms of urban life. Cincinnati World Cinema screens In the Mood for Love in conjunction with the Cincinnati Art Museum’s China Design Now exhibition 7 p.m. Nov. 11 and 12. $9; $7 for CAM member and students. Get details and find nearby bars and restaurants here.
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