Jasper’s review published on Letterboxd:
In the Mood for Love is one of my favorite films, but I always find it hard to explain why. The dreaminess, the heart aching loneliness, the set design, the colours, everything matches perfectly.
What catched my attention this time around was the fact that the two main characters are much of the time together, but never manage to really be together. They symbolize how we lock ourselves up in cages that we create for ourselves. We create personal rules that we adhere to, although after some time they don't make any sense anymore. We are probably the worst enemy of ourselves when it comes to finding love and expressing love, and that makes interesting material for WKW. He locks his characters up in small apartments and further increases the feeling of claustrophobia with frames inside frames (inside frames). Inside of this iron cage of personal rules, the two main characters are so busy with what they don't want to be, that they never manage to become what they do want to be. This intensifies the impossibleness of the situation, because nothing is stopping the two beautiful characters from being together, only their own minds.