GENRE CONVENTION ( pt 2 )

 

FILM CONVENTIONS

WONG KAR WAI : 

Wong Kar Wai is a Chinese director, who has a great legacy and impact on the film industry. Born in 1958, in Hong Kong, he has been influenced by the authentic life and people around there, which have inspired him to create the characters for his films. That’s why when we watch his films, we can see each of the films are distinguished from each other, each one of them having unique traits of its own, which create a separate world from the others. Many famous filmmakers were inspired by him, such as Barry Jenkins for his Oscar-winning film “Moonlight”, and Sofia Coppola for “Lost In Translation”, even Quentin Tarantino admits that he cried when he watched Chungking Express. 

So what made his films so special and unique? These bullet points below will answer the question and explain what made his films so special. 

 

COLORS : 

Wong Kar Wai films are always fixed with colors, which means every film has its own colors, therefore making each of them look really different from the others. If we look deep into all of his well-known works, we can distinguish the colors that he always uses to grade. The colors pack consists of blue, green, yellow, red, and black. Each of them represents different meanings 

• ( Deep Tone ) Blue:  melancholy and distance - e.g: Chung - King Express ( 1994 )

• Yellow: the hectic pace of the city and an overwhelming longing for coziness, confusion - e.g: 2046 ( 2004 ), a bit in Happy Together ( 1997 ) and In The Mood For Love ( 2000 )

• ( Neon ) Green ft. Blue: A tinge of nostalgia, a sense of loneliness, and urban alienation - e.g: Fallen Angels ( 1995 ), Happy Together ( 1997 )

• Red and Black: Suppressed love's intense intensity and painful constraint crouching in the shadows - e.g: In The Mood For Love ( 2000 )

All of these colors have created a different aesthetic for each film, therefore, it can be considered that Wong Kar Wai mostly are not similar to each other, instead, they each show different characteristics and stories. Hence, when we watch his films, we don’t feel bored or get familiar much, we get a different sense of atmosphere and context. 

THEMES AND CONTEXT : 

LOVE & LOSING : 

Wong Kar Wai usually makes films that convey stories about unrequited love and loss. In Wong's Cinema, happy endings are as rare as real life. The movie frequently ends with equal parts longing and sorrow since the protagonists never really obtain what they seek. Love, loss, and longing, that’s how he centers her narrative around, according to a reviewer. In terms of the ending, according to all of the experiences that I have with his films, Wong Kar Wai’s ending is not particularly happy or sad, in fact, it’s kind of an open ending when I still wonder what will happen next? Will they reach their final destination?

Usually, their context is not much about being in love. Still, it’s actually being grounded in that situation, such as post-breakup obsession and rejection of crushing someone in Fallen Angels or being afraid to speak words of love since it will make us just like them, just like the situation of Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan in In The Mood For Love. Even in situations where the dialogues with the beloved take place in real-time, these movies are immersed in a visual language that only understands loneliness. The characters' emotional states are not fully revealed in the discussions, but the atmosphere and ourselves are nonetheless gripped by a depressing sense. 

If poetry is characterized as the "unplanned accumulation of intense emotions," then Wong Kar Wai's movies can be considered poetic ballads. In these realms, suffering also takes on a romantic bent, giving precedence to emotions in the absence of reason. In the end, love always fails. The characters try their luck at chance meetings (In the Mood for Love), break into the beloved's house covertly (Chungking Express), and even go to the extremes of jealousy and compulsive possession (Happy Together). 

POETRY AND MONOTONY : 

This is why most of his films sometimes can be really dreamy. Stories and love can imbue ordinary objects and places with remarkable meaning. The way smoke curls upward from a half-lit cigarette is almost hypnotic; stairs provide a window into the intimacy of routines; and a simple can of pineapples reveals the expiration date of love—and of memories. This has become one of the characteristics of Wong’s cinema, where everything can be captured and seems to have some meanings or metaphors in it. 

He seems to be really focused on emphasizing the characters, details, and plots. Cinema can actually reflect reality, and what is reality if not a sequence of ordinary occurrences tinged with affection and love? Even though a particular individual or thing seems unimportant, it can evoke strong feelings in you. Just like how he describes his ways of portraying all of the elements in his works 

“Cinema can be the citric scent of a peeled orange, the touch of warm skin through a silk stocking; or simply a darkened space bathed in anticipation.”

Wong's art is entirely his own, with one foot firmly planted in pop exuberance and one in nostalgic melancholy. His signature handheld camera pictures, neon lights galore, and blurred destination vistas are all hallmarks of his style, each little frame is infused with photogenic misery and anguish. Despite his films' critical acclaim, they remain deeply personal, rooted in sentimentality and simplicity. 

NON - LINEAR ( UNCONTROLLED ) TIMELINE :

One more characteristic of Wong’s cinema is the mix-up of the timeline. According to him, he doesn’t care about organizing the timeline in order at all. Instead, he let the situation go on, sometimes may pass for about 1 day, or even 2 weeks. We can see that in In The Mood For Love, even though the clock emphasized most of the scenes, however, we didn’t know what exact day it was and were often confused or even immersed in the lowkey chaotic timeline. Time stops when we enter Wong's universe, and the passage of time is only noticeable in the intercuts of wall clocks and the blur of everyday life. As a result, Wong rarely uses a chronological timeline in his films. We are caught in the here and now, no matter if we are still in the past or have moved on to the future. 

Wong's consistent use of time and seamless storytelling have earned him the title of "auteur of time." These movies defy the simplistic progression of time and reject the "beginning, middle, and end" narrative that is so familiar to us. One more example we could mention here is Chungking Express, the movie has two stories about two young policemen, but both of them have no fixed timeline, set, or contextual backgrounds. 

The characters are vague, their motivations unclear, and they come and go with equal ease. The only similarity between the two scenarios is that they both frequent the same little store and like ordering chef's salads. 

With such a small regard for time, Wong also deftly employs dates to heighten the sentimental element when needed. Examples of this include Chungking Express's emphasis on May 1st and Happy Together's usage of a tape recorder to preserve a memory.

HONG KONG : 

There is no other contemporary director who has so skillfully and graphically encapsulated the soul and spirit of a city as evocatively as Wong Kar Wai, who is frequently referred to as the pioneer of Hong Kong cinema abroad. 

The 62 - years old director himself who is a product of displacement and diaspora, has a particular place in his heart for characters who are alienated and experience a sense of "un-belongingness," which is poignant in Happy Together when both heroes are in Argentina, distant from their home country and from themselves. 

A HARMONIZED AND INTERESTING MIXTURE OF MUSIC AND VISUALS : 

Music is also an element that he uses a lot in all of his works. Most of the songs are really famous in each decade and it surprisingly matches with the era and atmosphere of the films. For instance, the use of “California Dreaming” in Chungking Express brings a bright, new yet retro vibe of 90s Hong Kong, or “Yumeji’s Theme”, “Quizas, Quizas, Quizas”, “Te Quiero Dijiste” and “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” by Nat King Cole brings a strong vibe of 60s British Hong Kong ( when Hong Kong has still been colonized by the British Empire) since it got a vinyl - like sounds while playing in the background. His movies frequently use music to enhance specific scenes or are titled after songs that serve as inspiration. While one might not recall every detail of a Wong movie, one can never forget the soundtrack or the feelings it arouses. 

Step-printed effects and thrilling soundtracks have elevated arthouse cinema, thanks in part to Wong's films. His movies are a pleasant sensory extravaganza, with vibrant colors and catchy soundtracks in every scene. 

These songs, however, are not isolated pieces of music or works intended only as background music. The way the music and images work together makes the scenario stick in your head long after the movie is over. 

CAMERA ANGLES AND EDITING : 

Wong Kar Wai’s camera shots are quite still, he uses mostly Dutch angles, or frame-within-frame shots, to capture the “unperfect” lifestyle, or even let the audience know the current situation of the characters. It seems like he didn’t put much effort into transitions, since some of them are quite awkward and stiff, some fast, some slow. Step-printing filming is also a shooting technique that he uses, as it creates glitchy and slow-motion effects in the film. For instance, in the intro of Chungking Express, we can see the way that he captured Takeshi Kaneshiro running in both stop and slow motion, including glitchy moves, which made the scenes so iconic among movie lovers. 

This is also a characteristic to describe Wong Kar Wai’s movies, even though it’s awkward, solid, and not really smooth. However, it brings a feeling of realness since it can reflect how unstable life or the character itself is. 

HOW THESE ELEMENTS WILL BE PORTRAYED IN MY MUSIC VIDEO : 

My music video is all about portraying the painful, hurtful feelings of a teenager who is going through some terrible times that affect her mental health. The first aspect that will be quite heavily inspired is the acting of the actors, especially from Fallen Angels. As for the excellent portrayals of Michelle Reis and Takeshi Kaneshiro in dealing with their problems in the movies, their acting has inspired me to do the same thing. However, I will take inspiration from Michelle more since her expression was more lowkey and quite conveyed the vibe of “killing me softly”, it suits a person who has quite a complex personality and tends to keep things as private as possible like me. Takeshi Kaneshiro’s acting, on the other hand, was quite extreme and psychotic, which didn’t suit much and sometimes could be over-exaggerated. Yet, his character in Chungking Express is much more mellow and dreamy than Fallen Angels, maybe it is also a great inspiration for me to look out one more time. 

The second element that I also want to intertext is the uncontrollable timeline, the atmosphere in the MV could be either morning, afternoon, or night. There will be no specific times included in this video, it may have passed an hour, a day, even 3 weeks or more than that. The most important thing is how the pain actually becomes a long-term effect and gradually transforms into a scar that will be attached to the person's mind forever. 

Color grading is also an important element to include. According to the survey, everyone seems to be more interested in Fallen Angel's colors, which are neon green and blue, and a bit of yellow in. Some of the scenes are red too, but in the video, the major color will be blue. Not to mention the camera shots, which convey many close-ups, wide shots, frame-within-frame, and dutch angles. Step-printing shots will also be included on the bridge part, and the transition will be solid and quite awkward.