Urban Alienation in "Chungking Express"
Chungking Express (1994), is directed by Kar Wai Wong and consists of two different stories about two policemen’s’ romances. While the stories do not interconnect, the main characters from the second story appear in the first for a few brief moments.
The first story centers around Cop 223 who is grappling with a devastating break-up. He decides that he will wait a month before moving on with his life and buys a can of pineapple with an expiration date of May 1st everyday. Meanwhile, a woman who wears a blonde wig runs for her life after a drug operation fails. Cop 223 sees the woman in a bar and begins talking to her, and takes her back to his hotel room where she falls asleep while he watches movies alone. The woman leaves in the morning and shoots the drug ringleader who set her up. She then pages Cop 223 wishing him a happy birthday which gives him the strength to move on with his life.
The second story revolves around Cop 663 who is dealing with his break-up from a flight stewardess. He meets Faye who works in a snack bar that he frequents and she falls in love with him. Faye then secretly begins sneaking into his apartment during the day to revamp and improve his living conditions. Cop 663 then begins to realize that Faye likes him and invites her to meet him at a restaurant for a date. Surprisingly, Faye then decides she wants to see the world and leaves him a fake boarding pass with the date a year from that day. In the final scene Faye returns a year later now as a flight attendant and sees that Cop 663 has turned the snack bar into a restaurant. While it is unclear in what direction their relationship will go, the ending conveys a hopeful tone.
In this scene Faye has just received a letter from Cop 663’s ex-girlfriend and is instructed to give it to him. Cop 663 is reluctant to open the letter and instead drinks his coffee and leaves it in the hands of Faye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnVc7RItgHU&feature=relmfu
Urban alienation permeates this scene and entire film as the characters attempt, but are unable to connect with those around them. Wong emphasizes Cop 663 and Faye’s sense of loneliness by using a telephoto lens and only having one character in focus at a time. He also shows the two conversing by using medium close-up over the shoulder shots which keeps them at a distance in separate frames which accentuates their inability to connect. This separation is also displayed by the physical barrier of the snack bar between them. Furthermore, Wong incorporates his uniquely contemporary approach to cinematography by using a powerful time-lapse shot which slows down the pictographic motion of the scene as Cop 663 drinks his coffee and Faye gazes longingly at him across the counter. The two characters physical and emotional distance is highlighted to the viewer, and the slowed down time-lapse shot allows one to realize this separation. Moreover, the people outside the cafe’s actions are sped up, and the crowded city seems to only emphasize these suffering characters’ isolation and their inability to connect with anyone around them.
Contrastingly to the characters grappling with solitude despite being surrounded by hoards of people in Chungking Express, it is interesting to note that characters who are legitimately isolated in nature are completely at peace with themselves and their surroundings as seen in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (2003). In this film, directed by Ki-duk Kim, a monk master and his pupil live at the bottom of a valley on a floating temple in the middle of a lake. However, despite this physical isolation from society, the old man and the boy are in touch with their surroundings and perfectly content. After the young boy goes off to the city and becomes acquainted with civilization he becomes “corrupted.” It is only upon returning to the temple, and nature, is the boy able to find inner peace in his heart again. Ki-duk Kim utilizes landscape inSpring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring by incorporating numerous long shots of the lake and expansive surroundings which minimize peoples’ problems by putting them in the perspective of the massive landscape that encompasses them. The long shots also heighten the characters’ alienation from society by displaying how they are surrounded by miles of uncivilized land. This isolation in the wilderness gives the characters a sense of self and their role in the universe as they view life in the most natural of senses and are not bothered by everyday problems as the characters are in Chungking Express. Enclosed by the bustling city of Hong Kong, the landscape highlights the characters sense of solitude as they are unable to connect with any of the thousands of people they see each day. Wong repeatedly shows Hong Kong with congested streets and people perpetually moving which displays a lack of human closeness in this rapid, constantly shifting world. The people seem to be moving at such a high-paced speed throughout that intimacy does not seem possible in Wong’s garish portrait of an overcrowded city.
The depiction of the city as a place of human alienation and despair, and nature as one of harmony and joy, reflects the notion of Romanticism which was introduced in the nineteenth century as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution. In his article “Wilderness and the American Mind,” Roderick Nash explores how people perceived nature upon first arriving in America. Before its settlement, pioneers viewed the wilderness as “a moral vacuum, a cursed and chaotic wasteland,” (Nash 24). As it was a vast, unknown terrain, absent of any human moral codes or standards, people feared and rejected this barbaric realm. However, decades later after many settlers began cultivating the land, peoples’ perceptions began to change towards the landscape. Once it began disappearing people learned to appreciate its natural beauty and did not fear it; this alteration in attitude would ultimately shape the Romanticist movement which emphasizes the idea of returning back to nature. In his article “The American Wilderness in Historical Perspective” Nash studies this shift in perception as people began embracing Romanticism and started believing “that life in civilization failed to provide all the elements essential to man’s physical, mental and spiritual welfare,” (Nash 11). Romanticists believed that cities were filled with moral decay and degradation, and that only by rejecting the tainted civilization and returning to nature could people be truly peace with themselves. Thus, in the case of these two films Chungking Express and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, the Romanticist view on the return to nature being essential to human happiness is promoted as the characters who live in a civilization that is endlessly in motion are tortured by isolation and the characters who are in actual isolation in nature live in a state of tranquility and peace. In Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring the characters are able to see the big picture of life and do not trouble themselves with the wallows of the modern world while in Chungking Express the characters are surrounded by constantly moving people that only remind them of their inability to connect with any of them.
Furthermore, the use of time-lapse shots to accentuate the characters sense of personal disconnection in Chungking Express can also be seen in Paris Je t’aime (2006) in Tom Tykwer’s vignette “Faubourg Saint-Denis.” Tykwer uses time-lapse shots by keeping the two main characters still while speeding up the pictographic motion around them. At the beginning of the vignette, the two lovers hold onto one another as people and trains whiz past them. As the two are together the crowd seems insignificant, and is not a focal point for the scene. However, later in the vignette, the lovers are turned away from each other in the same location displaying their personal disconnection with those who are nearby and far away. Now that the couple is separated the crowd of rapidly moving people seems more isolating than ever. Moreover, it is important to note, that while Wong uses telephoto lens in Chungking Expressto highlight the characters sense of isolation, Tykwer chooses to instead utilize wide angle lenses in his film. Wide angled shots offer a feeling of connectedness to the viewer while telephoto lenses accentuate isolation; however, the theme of alienation is achieved by both directors regardless of their lens choices.
Therefore, in Chungking Express, the theme of urban alienation is explored by director Kar Wai Wong through his use of time lapse shots. Wong utilizes the structure lectured by Professor Segal “content + form= meaning” by adding the content, the interpersonal behavior and dynamics between people, with the form, the use of time-lapse shots. In the end he achieves the meaning, the theme of isolation, which is prominent throughout the entire film as the characters are surrounded by people constantly in motion yet are unable to connect or form any level of intimacy with them.
“Chungking Express.” IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109424/>.
Nash, Roderick. “The American Wilderness in Historical Perspective,” Forest History 6.4 (Winter 1963), 2-13. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3983142>
Nash, Roderick Frazier. “A Wilderness Condition.” Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2001 [1967]. 23-43 (ch 2).
Segal, Shira. “Defining Terms.” Illinois, Evanston. 26 Feb. 2012. Lecture.
