My children bought me a lovely Christmas present — a Criterion box set of Federico Fellini’s films. I haven’t had time to dive into the collection yet, but did begin my journey with a documentary about Fellini that is part of the collection. I was struck by the way Fellini openly admits that filmmaking, especially in the role of the director, is a dictatorial role, one where it is possible to play god, create worlds and explore your inner life on a grand stage.

Earlier today I watched a video on the Criterion Channel featuring the Safdie brothers, and at one point Benny Safdie says that there’s something inherently evil in filmmaking, that it’s a way of distorting reality and turning people from active participants in life to spectators, spectators at the whim of the director.

I had a similar but different thought while watching this segment of “In the Mood for Love” — filmmaking requires a degree of sadism, and this is made apparent in how characters are treated. It’s a form of rebellion against an Almighty, that a human being can breathe life into people and then force them to experience sorrow, heartbreak and disappointment.

Wong Kar-Wai will make us experience Mrs. Chan standing in the doorway to the Chow apartment/room, talking to Mrs. Chow and trying to stay composed while her husband is inside that room, something she suspects but cannot in the moment name. So we have to watch her suffer with this knowledge and keep her composure even though she is the one being transgressed upon.

Wong also wants viewers to understand at every moment that he is in full control of this world. In this segment, there are two moments where he intervenes with an editing trick and weather to push the dual protagonists into greater despair, but also towards each other.

The first occurs when Wong subtly slows down the film for just a second while Mrs. Chan is having a discussion with her boss about his mistress, who is passing on a note to please call her. The time slip allows the character’s glare to hang a moment longer, underlining his annoyance and powerlessness. But the technique also underscores how Wong is more powerful than this man, that he can manipulate time and space to humble him at his will.

The second occurs during the next extended stairwell musical interlude. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan are both dressed in grey now, accentuating their joylessness at their predicament. They want to continue on their routine paths, but Wong wants to bring them together now, so he conjures up a driving rainstorm to keep Mr. Chow on the stairs and then down in the noodle shop again, waiting for it to pass.

This rainstorm foreshadows an even more dramatic rainfall to come. It is also historically apt, given that Hong Kong experienced deadline typhoons in 1962.

This leads to the first semi-open conversation between the characters about what is going on — an acknowledgement from both that they are eating many dinners alone because their spouses have other things to do.

In the next scene, the ice will finally break and the characters will begin to find kinship in their simultaneous disappointment. What “In the Mood for Love” does so effectively is create a gravitational pull between these characters. We already admire them and feel for their predicament — and we want them to find each other.

But Wong, the great directorial sadist that he is, also understands that once tension is released, you can never get it back. So he will contrive to build the tension far beyond what most filmmakers dare to do in a film of this type, which is also why “In the Mood for Love” is the most effective cinematic love story, ever.