Mise-en-Scene in In the Mood for Love Free Essay Example, 1500 words

In the Mood for Love may be using the commercial genre of the melodrama at its core, but the film structure itself is highly stylized; even the narrative receives an art-house treatment. That said, Wong is fond of creating moody atmospheres through a combination of mise-en-scene, cinematography and his own directing style. The framing serves to magnify the isolation that the characters feel, but also the particularities and emotional reactions of his actors, especially Maggie Cheung s. The cramped apartments and narrow streets that see the to and fro of the protagonists serves to highlight the claustrophobia of their actual environment, which in turn highlights the loneliness of their existence. At the same time, the same cramped spaces inspire a sense of intimacy: for instance, the constricted stairway which leads to the street noodle stand often forces Chow and So to move well within each other s personal space whenever they happen to cross each other one going down, the other re turning to their apartment. At times, several planes will come into focus or shift from one another, drawing attention to a character or to an action which is occurring in either the foreground or the background these shifts do not always bear relevance to the plot, but are aesthetically pleasing and fit the mood of a given scene. We will write a custom essay sample on Mise-en-Scene in 'In the Mood for Love' or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Their absence in the scene helps in fulfilling 2 main aims: the first, is to free the 2 of them from their respective partners; they are persons who are in existence in a different dimension, both physically and emotionally. The second aim, it shifts the attention entirely on the characters that have been cheated upon, focusing on their reaction to the betrayal and how they deal with it.