This Sunday, at 5 pm, Suchitra Film Society Hong Kong’s celebrated auteur Wong Kar-Wai’s stylistic and scintillating masterpiece In the Mood for Love. A refined and delicate mushy melodrama, captured in all its poetic and resplendant beauty, it tells the tantilising tale of a married man and married woman, who, living in adjacent apartments, fall in love while grappling with the infidelities of their respective spouses.

Do not be mistaken by the title of the film, it is not a lurid, titillating saga, but evocatively captures the variegated moments of the two protagonists, who thrown together by chance into an uncertain affair. They do not consummate their affair, which is more of a platonic and mystic in nature, and are also aware of the social propriety and ethical concerns and act on the principle of moral restraint.

A veritable mood piece, the film, whose mise en scene faithfully records the multifarious exchange of feelings of the two as they reflect upon the doings of their respective spouses who are not seen at all, through several fleeting moments of time, speaks of the Wong’s reputation as a cool, hip artist of contemporary cinema. The acting, the superlative cinematography, the vibrant colours, the magical, lyrical music score, make the film one aesthetic and impressionistic miniature soap opera. Love and longing takes a new meaning in Wong Kar Wai’s enthralling and enigmatic movie, who is one of Hong Kong’s second New Wave filmmakers providing innovative and fresh aesthetic approach to cinema. For details call 26711785 (Siddaraju / Shiri).