The cinematography of Fallen Angels

In Fallen Angels, Wong Kar-Wai uses a wide angel to distort most of the scene including the characters and the environment and makes the object look different and peculiar. This is one of the interesting use to represent his intense content . Approximately every technique that gets involved in the film is trying to explore the way of presenting the world and means of the community in HongKong. Additionally, the way of using cinematography is against the tradition.

The cinematographer shots the back of the character in a wide angel and pretends as a stranger from behind closely. The scene establishes a subjective point of view. A subjective point of view re-creates the perspective of the character through camera placement. ( Corrigan and White, 105) Which means that as soon as the the audience is experiencing the atmosphere, they are gradually receiving the sense of urgency in this particular isolation which is the distance between the girl and the camera. The scene seem a little bit jolted when the cinematographer uses handheld camera to follow the girl. This shaky frame produces a tremendous suspense and spreads a intense and anxious mood to the audience.  

Wong Kar-Wai uses fast motion shot to depict the estranged indifferent world and the unstable situation in life. The fight scene gives a effect of intense emotion on the viewer because the use of fast motion makes the audience hardly focus on the character at the same time as the flickered effect drives people get into a muddle.This use of cinematography assist the story to reveal a deformed modern world. 

Wong Kar-Wai uses a special lens to make the scene seem a bit odd and twisted. As being that, the closer object will be twisted and the further away object will seem remote. For example there is a scene that shows a train passing through. The train is in an awkward position and towards somewhere beyond the city. This scene may makes the audience notice the transience of time.

The interesting point for me is that the photographer creates an extremely close up of the character giving her a strange twisted face. This slightly implies a social misfits that the character’s role is playing. The close up also can clearly shows the character is in the depths of despair so that the audience smoothly experiences the scene and empathizes the strong emotional states. In this way, the audience can easily read character’s minds and observe the cold hollow world that surrounds people in HongKong.

Fallen Angel is taking at night, this can emphasize the powerful emotional states in a particular scene. The used of cinematography is a enhancement, it depicts a relation which is in a “intersecting and paralleling trajectories of the characters”(Wright). This means people come and go easily, nothing in life will be permanent in the story. The director utilizes extensive cinematography skill and paints the lifeless and depressed community in Hong Kong in a lifelike way.

Work Sited

Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Third Edition. New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2012. Print.

Fallen angel. Dir. Wong Kar-wai.1995. Film.

Wright,Elizabeth.“WongKar-Wai”.Sensesof Cinema. Internet. Accessed 23 April 2015

 http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/wong/