“A few minutes into the film, as Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan are each moving into the same building, a shot of apples. A painting on a wall of apples in a shallow basket. Below the painting, on a plate, actual apples. Above the painting, a lamp fixture, pointing up. Down toward the apples in the flesh, a desk lamp, similar in shape, pointed downward, right at the apples. The lamp pointed down at the apples, as if a spotlight. The lamp is off, but the paint on the wall is chipped away, missing in a pattern—the absence of paint as a cone of light. Fruit and paint. Light and paint. Surface and depth. Thing and image. Reality and pretend.”

- Notes on "In the Mood for Love"