
In the Mood for Love
Directed by Wong Kar-wai
2000
Longing has never been filmed better than this: Wong Kar-wai gets more out of a stairwell and one repeated waltz than most directors manage with an entire script.
★ 9.3

Longing has never been filmed better than this: Wong Kar-wai gets more out of a stairwell and one repeated waltz than most directors manage with an entire script.

It won the only Academy Award ever given for Unique and Artistic Picture: Murnau's camera never stops moving, and the film is astonishing to look at a century on.

Ozu made the same film over and over and this is the most perfect version: a daughter who will not marry, a father who will not say what he wants, and one vase.

Nothing else captures an ordinary family like this: Yang holds three generations of a Taipei household in one frame, and the small boy photographing people's backs explains the whole method.