Regardless of Wong Kar-wai's achievements, personally, I like Wong Kar-wai's films because of the sentimental sentimentality and the very life-like shooting angles of his films. "Chongqing Forest" is a movie from 1994. At that time, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung, Brigitte Lin, and Faye Wong were still very young, but Wong Kar-Wai saw these actors.
From the perspective of the lens, because it is a very life-like movie, when watching this movie, it is more like an outsider watching other people's lives, and the shooting method is more like a person holding a camera and taking pictures. Expressing our relationship with this story, we are on the one hand out of the way, and on the other hand we are actually involved in it. The meaning he wants to express is probably like this, more often, there is a space between people and people, and they meet. But in fact they have nothing to do with it.
Just like the two most important shots at the beginning of the film, the first is composed of multiple shots. A woman walks in Chungking Mansion, where dragons and snakes are mixed, followed by Jin Chengwu running in the alley. These shaky shots are confusing. Therefore, it is precisely because of this that it attracts people's attention and makes people concentrate on thinking. What's wrong? The second picture is the sky, gray sky, many chimneys, many buildings, there are many such buildings in Hong Kong, like Chungking Mansions, they form a forest, a forest of reinforced concrete, the sky in Hong Kong is always gray , like people's emotions and expressions, are immutable. In these two pictures, Wong Kar-wai's positioning for the entire film is chaos and exposed privacy. You can see that the life scenes in Chungking Mansions are so real. These scenes were also shot by Wong Kar-wai, who broke into Chungking Mansions despite the objections of the staff. I think he has achieved this goal, he is happy, and so are we.
The character 223 played by Takeshi Kaneshiro is a rambler, a lovelorn man who keeps calling and then crouches beside the phone, sometimes filmed at an oblique angle, this is the sight and angle of 223, we feel it Helplessness and the emptiness of rejection. Even on the night of April 30th in the story, when he called the call machine service desk, the camera's shot of him was dark. No matter how dark he stood, the light did not hit him. At this time, we started from this He felt his helplessness and hesitation in absolute grayscale. This method was also applied to the female drug dealer played by Brigitte Lin, and the effect was the same.
There are many more detailed shots, the more profound is when 223 told the reason why he bought canned food, he confessed: "I don't know when, everything has a date on it, saury will expire, pineapple will expire, just Even the plastic wrap will expire, I don’t know what else will expire.” At the same time, the camera took a close-up of the piles of cans, one with a shot, one after another, all marked date. This made me feel the emotion of 223 even more.
Indian music is more common in this part. For example, when a female drug dealer finds those Indians, she counts the bills to them. The music and scenes used during this period are all described as fast, expressing a cheerful atmosphere and exotic style. Music makes people feel happy. But it's also here, when things don't go well, a male voice in Hindi is vaguely heard, like a radio, and I don't know what he's talking about, which makes people confused and puzzled, and at this time the female drug dealer is also in the in trouble.
This film is divided into 2 parts. In the second part, Tony Leung also naturally expresses himself in front of the camera. For example, at night, he will always stand on the corner of the street, and then he will come from the dark and walk into the store. In contrast, the man is quiet, except at home, where he rambles about towels and soap.
Faye Wong is in the shop, her favorite music is carifornia dream. This is American country music. The style of the song is bright. If Tony Leung is a gloomy cloud, then Faye Wong is undoubtedly the sun, shining with light. Immediately afterwards, what we can feel is Faye Wong's change to Tony Leung, bit by bit, slowly entering his life. If there is any connection between the second part and the first part, I do not agree with this point, because these two men have the same character, Tony Leung's change can actually be said to be an optimistic ending, showing that he is willing to change The ending is still good, so back to the choice of music, carifornia dream. is a metaphor.
Chongqing Forest is not only to attract me with the storyline and classic lines, but the artistic charm of the director is the most important, the music is a smart butterfly resting on a green leaf, and it is precisely the camera that captures all this to the audience, It is definitely not a mistake to favor Wong Kar Wai's films.
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