You know what I like about Wong Kar-Wai movies? There is love, and there is so much yearning. The sets are lived in. I watch a lot of movies these days where the houses are curated to perfection. The cushions go with the curtains. The flowers in the vase match the florals on the carpet. Or everything is monochromatic. All white, beige and brown, or all pastels, or grey. For example, have you seen the movie American Psycho? I want my house to be that clean and organised. Do you remember Patrick’s cutlery drawer? I don’t own that many knives, I wish I did. My cutlery does not sit in neat drawers. They are divided into categories and live in different cups. I hate it when people put a spoon/spatula back in the wrong category cup when they’re putting away washed and dried dishes. I can’t tell them because I don’t think most people can understand the way they are categorised.
My house is lived in and I have come to accept that the cutleries are going to be in the wrong cups at times and I just have to put it back into its right cup when I see it. The cushions, curtains, carpets, sheets in my house were acquired over the last two decades. The decorations were gifted by family and friends. I have Ghibli art sitting right beside a Dhokra figurine which is sitting beside Bumblebee and bunch of Lego. Friends have have seen me through all these iterations of myself.
The color of the paint on the wall was decided by the house owner. Changing it is expensive and laborious. Nothing matches anything therefore. I have a lot of florals but I don’t always feel that way. I had a grey-beige-pastel phase too. Re-upholstering everytime I change my mind is not very economic. Kar-Wai’s sets look like a well-lived in house where things were bought over seasons, over years, and therefore contain pieces from every passing trend and previous versions of people.
There is also the use of the color red. If my house is a colour, I think it would be blue or yellow. Perhaps orange. I genuinely cannot tell. Maybe that is something for someone outside the house to decide.
When I posted this image on my Instagram Story, more than two people asked whether it was from In the Mood for Love (2000). In the Mood for Love is a festival of red.
Chungking Express (1994), you may feel, isn’t very red. I would say, it still is, every scene has an element that is red. Blonde wig lady’s glasses, Cop 663’s iron box, almost every signboard in the background, check-in counters at the airport, Cop 223’s tie, Faye’s tie, drink cups, sauce bottles, light from the traffic.
