The Ergonomics of Desire
- irisqiu7
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
From the Bodies of Lust, Caution to the Distance of Wong Kar-wai
Some of cinema’s most erotic scenes place sex openly before us. Bodies are naked, entangled and impossible to ignore. Others contain almost no physical contact at all, yet are no less charged with desire.
Both kinds of scene can become strangely addictive to watch.
In Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, sex is presented in full physical force. The bodies collide, twist, resist and lock around each other in positions that can initially seem violent, complicated, even difficult to decipher. On a first viewing, it is not always clear what the two people are doing, or where desire ends and struggle begins.
The scenes can be watched more than once without becoming simpler. In fact, each viewing may produce a different impression. What first appears to be an assault may later reveal an unexpected bodily response. What looks like domination may contain emotional exposure. A strange or awkward position may turn out to determine who can move, who controls the angle, who is restricted, and who has placed themselves in danger.
The scenes are explicit, but their meaning is not.
Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love creates an equally powerful erotic pull through almost the opposite means.
Su Li-zhen walks through a dim, narrow passage in one of her immaculate qipaos. She passes Chow Mo-wan at close range while Yumeji’s Theme moves in its slow, three-beat rhythm. Her body is almost completely covered. The two barely touch.
Yet this brief passage is one of the most compulsively rewatchable moments in modern cinema.
The confined space, the movement of her body beneath the qipao, the music, and the nearness of two people who remain beyond each other’s reach create an almost hypnotic tension. Desire, curiosity and sexual chemistry are everywhere, although nothing openly happens.
In Lust, Caution, the body is exposed and sex is placed directly before us. In In the Mood for Love, the body is enclosed, and desire gathers around a touch that never quite takes place.
One film makes us look because everything is shown.
The other makes us look because almost everything is withheld.
Ang Lee brings two bodies into contact and asks what happens when resistance, control and political purpose begin to break down. Wong Kar-wai preserves the distance between bodies and allows longing to intensify inside that distance.
Continue reading on Substack:
Comments