23/05/2022
film screening and discussion
In the Mood for Love
Od–jazd Film Club meeting
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In the Mood for Love
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[Fa yeung nin wa], directed by Wong Kar Wai, France/Hong Kong 2000, 98'
- Hong Kong, 1962. Mrs Chan and her husband and Mr Chow and his wife live next door in the same tenement. She is a secretary; he is a newspaper editor. The constant absence of their spouses and the monotony of everyday life in the cramped building make Mrs Chan and Mr Chow feel increasingly lonely. As they keep meeting each other by chance in the corridors and alleys, a fragile bond emerges between the distant and introverted protagonists. However, everything changes when they discover that their spouses are having an affair.
- The award-winning In the Mood for Love is a film by Hong Kong’s most acclaimed filmmaker Wong Kar Wai. The unhurried pace, the pastel colour filters, the blurred frames and the rich symbolism of the details are just a few of the most recognisable features of his style. As in most of his films, Wong Kar Wai speaks the language of subtle understatements and conjectures. He captivates with hypnotic nostalgia lined with a tart bit of melancholy and longing for something hidden deep down, something that can never make itself heard, but which we subconsciously crave so desperately…
- What is Wong Kar Wai’s style about?
- What role do details play in his films?
- How has the French New Wave influenced his work?
- We will try to answer these and many other questions together with our club’s expert prof. Piotr Kletowski. We invite you to the screening and discussion, during which you will be able to ask questions and share your ideas on how to interpret the film. What do you think In the Mood for Love is about? We want to hear your opinion!
- Piotr Kletowski
- Professor at the Jagiellonian University, lecturer at the Institute of the Middle and Far East (Department of Korea), Faculty of International and Political Studies. Culture and film expert. He specializes in film anthropology, broadly understood history of cinema and issues of film d'auteur. Holder of a scholarship of the Polityka magazine, “Stay with us”, and the Foundation for Polish Science. Author of over 100 publications in domestic and foreign periodicals, including monographs, pioneering in Polish film studies, on the works of masters of cinema from Japan (Śmierć jest moim zwycięstwem – kino Takeshiego Kitano [Death is my Victory - the cinema of Takeshi Kitano]), USA (Filmowa odyseja Stanleya Kubricka [Stanley Kubrick’s film odyssey]) and Italy (Pier Paolo Pasolini – twórczość filmowa [Pier Paolo Pasolini – film works]). Co-author (with Piotr Marecki) of interviews with individual creators of Polish cinema (among others: Królikiewicz. Pracuję dla przyszłości [Królikiewicz. Working for the future]). Editor of a series of articles about European genre cinema and a publication refreshing the film canon (1000 filmów, które tworzą historię kina [1000 films that make up the history of cinema], ed., PISF award in 2021 for the best film studies publication). He publishes in the magazines Kino and Kwartalnik filmowy and carries out a wide variety of activities popularizing the history of cinema. In 2004-2018, founder (in 2004-2008 leader) of the Open Academy of Japanese Cinema at the Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz Manghha Centre of Japanese Art and Technology. Member of the Polish Society of Cultural Studies and the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies.
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