#wongfuphil

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[icedancegems]

[icedancegems]

[wordsbyliz]

Phil definitely is writing my life right now. I’ve been feeling so isolated, depressed, and unsatisfied with my life. I’m in my 20s and all I do is work with no self-indulgence. I need to work on getting out of this clouded mindset and find a balance in life. hopefully I can take the steps to make this change.

[no1s-perfect]

Not even gonna lie. This gave me chills~

[nitathoughts]

Don’t you see? You let the person who said they wouldn’t live without you,

Realise they can.  ~ Phil Notes.

[cggentolia]

Thoughts on Untouchable

I recently watched Untouchable by Wong Fu Production’s Phil Wang and I believe it was a “return to form” of the dramatic, emotional shorts that made me and countless others fall in love with Wong Fu’s storytelling. The premise of attempting to find closure from a relationship and the hope that perhaps it could actually work out in the end is an idea that allows the audience to sympathize with both Wendy and Evan. However, there is something to also be gained from the filmmaking techniques that Phil used to convey the experience of both characters.

The beginning of the short being a splitscreen has use for efficiency and dramatic flair. The film does not waste time in establishing the awkwardness and situation between Wendy and Evan through the splitscreen. Despite utilizing half of the video, Wes’ character’s humorous “I’m gonna pee” leaves such an awkward space that is larger than the space the exes are occupying. The splitscreen does its job in saving time for the audience to understand the backstory of the main characters and ensuring that we feel this awkward tension between the two former lovers. It’s also pretty original in a non-comedic video.

As the video progresses towards Wendy leaving the party, the audience gets a closeup of Evan writing in his notebook. The closeup makes sense later as Wendy establishes that Evan is a writer. I feel most people are going to sympathize with Wendy in that he or she has already let go but still has baggage from a previous relationship. However, Evan’s view of the world is fascinating to me in that not only is it incredibly idealistic, but it’s also domineering what with Wendy’s accusations that Evan just wants to play out the story and the main line of the short “Sabotaging reality for the sake of fiction.” proves his dictatorial-esque perspective.

Phil’s blocking of Evan and Wendy during the beginning part of the confrontation is actually really well thought out. The initial confrontation by Evan shows him looking down upon Wendy with a sense of control and his belief that they’ll end up together giving him and the audience a false sense of power in the scene. However, as Wendy keeps cutting Evan down with her words, the audience sees Evan crumbling to his most vulnerable state until he ends up lower in power to Wendy. However, Wendy isn’t impervious to the vulnerability either because she joins Evan, both to progress the conversation to its most vulnerable and to show that both characters are on even ground, something that probably hasn’t happened since the two characters’ breakup.

The shots during the conversation between Evan and Wendy are simple, as this is a simple scene. We have closeups of Wendy, Evan, and a medium shot of the two sparingly. But the focus once the two former lovers are at their most vulnerable is on Wendy, which really drives the emotional knife into both Evan and the audience. Wendy being center frame whenever we have a closeup of her talking allows us to see her as the true authoritative figure. The lasting shot of Evan recollecting the conversation represents what Phil is attempting to do to the audience as well with taking in the emotional stab of the short. 

I’m sorry Phil, but Alisa Allapach carried this short. She delivered her “adult language” lines such as “This is a fucking story?” so incredibly well. It’s actually kind of funny that Phil plays the weak male character with strong female leads in plenty of other shorts. The dialogue during the conversation could be viewed as too “deep” to the point that it is “unrealistic” but would it be a Phil project if it didn’t have this kind of dialogue? Not so much an excuse, its rather a style that Phil has developed across many shorts over the past years.

The short is a throwback to what Wong Fu did for years prior to 2014, with many dramatic shorts entailing the feelings that people have throughout a relationship and I feel happy knowing that Phil and the rest of Wong Fu still have it in them to create small projects with emotional impacts such as Untouchable. My views on love and relationships have been incredibly shaped by Wong Fu over my adolescence and now I can add a different perspective on their projects.  

I think that this post is WAY too long for anyone to read thoroughly, especially about dissecting a 9 minute video, but there are deeper layers than just the emotions from the story. Phil uses filmmaking techniques to enhance the story being told rather than just having two characters having dinner and talking their feelings out. 

[sunshinetomyrain]

"What makes it enough, what makes it the one, is choice, constantly choose to love. So, what're you going to choose?"

- 'I love you' isn't enough - ACCUMULATED