In the mood for love was very interesting in its story-telling. Wong's frequent distortions of image and sound help to explain to the audience of the films unnatural tone. It seems odd that two people who spouses were have an affair with the spouse of the others would in turn fall in love themselves. This is such an odd concept. Especially when the relationship of the two, who were in the beginning being cheated on, began their own relationship only in an effort to restore some idea of marriage to their own lives. You can see images in the beginning when they start to spend more time together that they both are trying to direct each other to how their spouse would normally act. They both are in the mood for love and want to get it even if it is not from their actual significant other. And more specifically, the love that they are each in the mood for is not physical love, but emotional connection with another person. Both of their spouses are gone because they are cheating, but also because they work long hours and often travel for their jobs. Because they are never around, their significant others often feel alone and neglected. So when their relationship begins to blossom with one another, they do not need physical love as much as they need to fill the emotional gap that has been created with the loss of their marital partner.
Their partners are never shown clearly in the film. The cheating husband is actually never in a frame of the film, but we do here his voice, and the cheating wife is also never clearly shown. This is obviously a comment on the view of both of their actions. Adultery is obvious a negative aspect throughout the film. Which I think Chow and Su are held in high regard because even though their partners are cheating they never take any action towards each other. It seems that whenever the audience expects them to have some type of physical action with each other, the simply end of have a cigarette to show the frustration that they are both feeling, not only because of they actions of each of their partners, but also because of the route that their own relationship with each other is taking. Neither I believe set out to fall in love with each other, and honestly when they did express their love for each other I was somewhat surprised because they hadn't each shown that they even liked each other very much, much less loved one another.
Interesting stuff. As you say, yes, it's not so much the physical that's desired or on display here, but the conceptual, the idea of love that's being explored, not just by the film, but also by the characters. Perhaps we respect them for this, as well as their refusal to commit adultery: their exploration of love as something separate from sex (which is so often used to represent love in film) without losing the emotional depth we desire from such an adventure.
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