Wong Kar-wai, an auteur who belongs to the Second New-Wave of Hong Kong cinema, stands apart from the other directors because of his unique creative style, including multiple narrators, unusual camera techniques, exaggerated colors, and the use of music. Wong was born in 1956 in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong at five years old. This experience of leaving “home” contributes to forming the recurring themes of his films, such as the themes of isolation, exile, and nostalgia. Although there are multiple layers of his film, the feeling of loneliness and isolation stand out the most. This kind of feeling normally results from one’s inability to connect to a space. In his films, Wong usually presents the feeling of loneliness and isolation through the plot, color, mise en scene, music, cinematography, and monolog.
In the plot of Wong’s films, the characters would always experience an unobtainable love that results from the inability to connect to a space. In Fallen Angles, the characters Wong Chi-ming (the assassin) and his nameless dispatcher are desperate for love, but they are unable to reach love. The dispatcher has fallen in love with the assassin while the assassin claims he refuses any emotional involvement that would expand beyond their professional lives. The assassin not only isolates himself from the dispatcher, but he also isolates himself from all others. When the assassin encounters a blonde girl who tells him that they have been together before, he makes it clear that he only interests in a one-night stand. Then he goes into the girl’s house and has sex with her. This scene does not have an erotic feeling; however, it is joyless and even melancholy. The contrast between the girl’s excitement and the assassin’s stillness is the evidence that the assassin emotionally detaches from the girl. Consequently, eroticism becomes a representation of generalized loneliness. The scene that the dispatcher is masturbating alone on the assassin’s bed is another example of how Wong transfigures desperate sex to a sign of loneliness. While the previous one is an emotional detachment, this masturbating scene of the dispatcher is a physical isolation, because one of the participants does not present.
Characters Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen in In the Mood for Love, also experience loneliness and isolation because they know they can never become lovers. The two characters live next to each other, and both find out their spouses having an affair. Under this circumstance, their spouses become the most familiar stranger. As a result, Chow and Su start to look for comfort from each other and eventually fall in love with each other. However, since this kind of extramarital love is considered as an immoral behavior, it is destined that they would never psychically be together. This psychologically and physically constrained environment become a tremendous obstacle to their relationship.
Although the films, Fallen Angels and In the Mood for Love, are set in a different time period, the protagonists’ unobtainable love are both due to their inability to find their position in a space. In Fallen Angels, both the assassin and his dispatcher are marginal people in the ever-changing city. They are unable to locate themselves in the city because the city is changing too fast. In additional, because of their job, they are not allowed to locate themselves in a fixed place. In consequence, they feel insecure. Similarly, Chow Mo-Wan and Su Li-zhen cannot relate to their place as well, because the environment is an obstacle to their relationship. Including an unobtainable love that results from disorientation in a space is a frequently-used technique to demonstrate loneliness and isolation in Wong’s films.
In addition to the depiction of unobtainable love in a plot, Wong also exerts color, music and mise en scene to create a lonely and isolated atmosphere in his films. Happy Together is one of the films to manifest his skilled use of color, music and mise en scene to develop the atmosphere. In Happy Together, a scene that Lai Yiu-fai stays alone in a pier after a fight with Ho Po-wing is an example of Wong’s master skill at developing a lonely and isolated atmosphere. The color of this pier scene changes from a warm tone to a cold tone. The previous fighting scene is occupied by orange, yellow, and red color; on the contrary, this scene is mainly blue and green, which are commonly related to sorrow and desolation. The color shifting means to represent the shifting of Yiu-fai’s emotion. Soon after, slow and heavy accordion music is sounded, following a series of sad tunes that is performed by a cello, then the piano. In this scene, the accordion changes its lively and unrestrained style, elongating each note to strengthen the gloomy atmosphere of the scene. Wong’s use of music reinforces the visual experience, illustrating an essential loneliness that perhaps upset all humans. The main focus of this scene switches between the sea and Lai Yiu-fai, arousing a feeling that the sea absorbs Lai Yiu-fai, suggesting an analogy that Lai Yiu-fai lost in his sorrow.
Placing a character in contrast to a grand landscape is Wong’s typical mise en scene to create the lonely and isolated mood in his films. At the last scene of In the Mood for Love, Chow Mo-wan is a contract to the magnificent Angkor Wat. He stands at Angkor Wat alone to bury the secret love for Su Li-zhen by talking to a tree hole. In this scene, Chow Mo-wan is almost negligible and insignificant comparing to the landscape. In Happy Together, the sublime waterfall is a contrast to Lai Yiu-fai, who stands there mourning for his loss of Ho Po-wing. The waterfall rages down like a hunting beast, swallowing up Lai Yiu-fai and his hope to “start again” with Ho-Po-wing. In Days of Being Wild, failing to reunite with his mother, the struggling and helpless Yuddy is a contrast to the endless forest. Even though Wong only films at Yuddy’s view of back in this scene, the background music “Always in My Heart” and the green and blue tune in this scene speak out for the silent Yuddy. Earlier in the movie, Yuddy had said that he wanted to know what was the last thing he saw before he died. Ironically, later in the film, the last thing he sees is the same forest, which he had seen when he was on the train leaving Philippine after the effort of searching his biological mother in vain. This flashback of the forest demonstrates that Yuddy is nowhere to belong even after his whole life of searching. The sequence makes the audience experience the same anguish feeling Yuddy undergoing, because of the deliberate choices of color, music, and mise en scene.
The different techniques of cinematography are equally important to convey loneliness and isolation in films of Wong Kar-wai. Firstly, Wong intentionally shoots a transportation in a way that it becomes a tiny space to seal and isolate the characters. Although transportation normally relates to moving forward, in Wong’s films, the transportation, in fact, emphasizes the characters’ immobility. Transportation becomes a tiny space that traps and isolates the characters in Wong’s films. One example is the way Christopher Doyle (the cinematographer) films the taxi. He shoots the taxi from the front and uses the edges of the taxi to form a frame and place the characters within this frame. The taxi occupied two-thirds of the whole screen, giving a feeling that the space is limited. In Happy Together, the top and the bottom of the taxi form two lines that enclose Lai Yiu-fai and Ho Po-wing inside this tiny space, creating an oppressive ambiance. The same taxi scene also occurs in In the Mood for Love, the two characters Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen sit in a taxi after having a dinner with each other. Identically, the two characters are trapped in the enclosed space that is constructed by the taxi. This is a metaphor for the situation that the two characters are restrained by the environment they live in. Secondly, Wong Kar-wai builds a transparent wall to separate the individuals and the environment. In Fallen Angels, Ho Chi-mo and Charlie are separated from the environment when they sit inside a restaurant. This two characters that are closest to the camera are calm, and Chi-mo is even smiling; whereas, the people in the background are fighting. What is more contradictory is the cheerful and enjoyable background music in this scene. This method of separating the two characters from the environment demonstrates the apathy of people. The characters live in their inner world and fail to connect to the outer world. The same in Happy Together when Lai Yiu-fai is drinking with Chang in a bar, the people in the background is having a fight, but both characters are interested in their own business. In Wong Kar-wai’s films, there is always an invisible wall that isolates the characters from the environment.
Thirdly, Wong inclines to use the reflection of a mirror to show the distance between characters when he is filming an indoor scene. For instance, in In the Mood for Love, when Christopher Doyle is shooting Chow Mo-wan writing his script with Su Li-zhen in his bedroom, he uses a tracking shot to move the camera between two mirrors. The reflections of the two mirrors allow the audience to see the two of them are keeping an arm’s length distance from all angles. The characters understand that they are committing adultery when they are staying in the same room without any others. They long for getting close to each other, but at the same time, they consciously keep distance to each other. Showing the two characters through the reflection in a mirror gives the audience a hazy feeling, in which parallels to the ambiguous relationship between Mo-wan and Li-zhen. In Happy Together, the mirror in the hotel reflects the helpless Ho Po-wing when he is arguing with Lai Yiu-fai. Christopher Doyle does not directly shoot Po-wing’s facial expression but reflects Po-wing through the mirror. During the whole arguing scene, the two characters do not appear in the same space. The audience can only see Po-wing through the mirror. By separating the two characters, Wong can show the distance between them. Even though they both physically present in an intimate space, they are spiritually apart from each other. In Days of Being Wild, mirrors are used a lot when Christopher Doyle is filming Yuddy and his stepmother, for example, the scene that his stepmother is telling Yuddy about going to the United States with a man. In this scene, his stepmother is looking at her image in the mirror; however, Yuddy is watching his stepmother through a glass door of the bathroom. As a result, there is a blurred glass door reflection to the left of a clear mirror reflection. The two different reflections indicate they receive different images when they are looking at the same object. This is the problem that generates the misunderstanding and isolation between Yuddy and his stepmother throughout the film. They cannot understand each other because they see things through different positions. To look in one’s reflection during a conversation is a typical technique Wong uses. Instead of having physical eye contact with others, the characters would look at the mirror when they are talking to others. The same shooting method applies to Yuddy and Mimi when they are having a conversation. This shooting method creates a sense of alienation, conveying the idea that the characters avoid having physical contact with others.
Fourthly, the use of hand-held camera contributes to rendering the unsettlement and anxiety of urban people. Wong frequently makes the scene look shaky and dizzy when he is shooting a city view. At the beginning of Chungking Express, the scene of the first appearance of the woman in a blonde wig is shaking violently. By presenting an urban city in this way, Wong successfully conveys a chaotic and unstable impression of the urban life. Furthermore, everyone in the street is blurry and unrecognized, except for the woman in a blonde wig, which is one of the protagonists in the film. As a result, the woman in a blond wig is distinct from others, or perhaps, isolated from others.
Characters in the films of Wong Kar-wai do not speak to others frequently; instead, they often give monolog to express their true inner thoughts, allowing the audience to capture their self-isolation, loneliness. In Chungking Express, Cop 663 entertainingly attempts to treat the objects in his living space as companies. He talks to a bar of soap that needs to be confidence, a washcloth that needs to have more strength and a stuffed animal that should forgive his ex-girlfriend. After his “conversation” with the stuffed animal, he asks a question to the shirt that is hanging on the window: “Are you feeling lonely? Let’s me give you some warmth.” Then he starts to iron that shirt. Before this simultaneously misery and funny scene, through his monolog, Cop 663 reveals that everything in his house, including him, becomes sad after his girlfriend abandoned him. He is talking to the objects that are surrounding him to dispel the loneliness he feels. The monolog in this scene transforms the abstract personal feeling of Cop 663 into a substantial entity that the audience can perceive. In Days of Being Wild, Tide’s monolog – “I haven’t really thought she would call me. But I will stop at the payphone every time I pass by.” —reveals his desire for communication. In the films of Wong, the audience could rare see the characters revealing their inner feeling to others; they mostly use monolog to express their thoughts although they sit next to each other. Their concealments led to a sense of alienation. Monologs in Wong’s film also show that the characters are desired for an interpersonal relationship with others, yet they are fear to commit themselves to a relationship. In Days of Being Wild, Yuddy spends his whole life to search for a space that he can call it “home.” He is similar to the bird without legs he mentions in his monolog. “This kind of bird that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired. The bird only lands once in its life... that's when it dies.” Yuddy’s failure of connecting to a space is predestined. He is a bird without legs that the meaning of its life is to search. This is why he is desires to find a place to connect to, but at the same time, he is afraid of finding it. Because of his inability to find his belonging to a space, he is unable to establish an interpersonal relationship with his stepmother, his two girlfriends, and Tide.
In conclusion, Wong Kar-wai depicts loneliness and isolation in his films through different techniques. The first one is to portray an unobtainable love in the story. Characters’ inability to connect themselves to a space result in the failure to establish an interpersonal relationship that often leaves the characters to feel empty and lonesome. Second, to strength the representation of a character’s loneliness and isolation, Wong deliberately choose the mise en scene, color, and music to develop the solitary atmosphere. Third, Wong and his cinematographer create their unique filming method to convey a sense of loneliness and isolation. Although transportation is related to mobility, Wong’s film emphasizes the enclosing characteristic of the transportation. The characters in the transportation remain still while the taxi is moving forward. Moreover, there is always a transparent wall in his films to separate the characters and the environment. The characters ignore the events occurring behind them and focus on their inner world. The third cinematographic technique is to make good use of mirror reflection. The reflection of the mirror helps to establish the alienation between people. Using a hand-held camera to create a shaken scene is also a special technique to represent the unsettled and isolated urban life. Last but not least, the characters’ monolog expresses their inner feeling. Since the characters in Wong’s film rarely reveal their feeling to others, the monolog is the most direct way to represent the loneliness and isolation. In Wong Kar-wai’s films, he successfully converts the famous and glam superstars, such as Leslie Cheng, Tony Leung, Brigitte Lin, into a marginalized and lonely nobody in a space. This success is not because of Wong’s luck; it is because of his master skill in directing.
Reference
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