MUHAMAD HAJRUL ASWAD BIN TALIB

2014478398
HOW SHOT CONTRIBUTES TO THE NARRATIVE OF FALLEN
ANGELS(1995)

Shot play an in important role in cinema. Every single shot have their
own function and meaning. In filmmaking and video production, a shot is a
series of frames, that runs for an uninterrupted period of time. Film shots are an
essential aspect of a movie where angles, transitions and cuts are used to further
express emotion, ideas and movement. There are various types of shot including
medium close up, close up, full shot, extreme close and many more. Shot can
contributes to narrative of the visual in film. Every directors has their own style
in film making. The shot in film potray the auteur of director.
In this task, I have choose the film Fallen Angel by Wong Kar Wai to
study the shot of the film contributes to the narrative. Fallen Angels is the story
of a professional killer in Hong Kong. It follows the in's and out's of his job and
his partner in crime who he rarely sees. After 3 years of working together he
wants to quit from what hes doing. Another story in this film is about a mute
(caused by eating expired cans of pineapples for a month, after he was heart
broken) who breaks into restaurants, cafe and ice-cream trucks at night and
forces people to buy his goods. This film show how the Hong Kong was set that
time. The first story features Leon Lai as a hit man named Wong Chi-Ming as
well as a woman who is his 'partner', played by Michelle Reis. The connection
between the two characters is that they work together even though they have
never met, until of course the very time that the opening scene implies. The
opening scene is about a black and white and close up shot and gives the impact
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to the whole film until the end./The first immediate connection that we learn
here is that the partner of Wong Chi-Ming lives in the same building as the
protagonist of the second story. Ho Chi Moo is a crazy delinquent who has
escaped prison. The woman helps him hide when the police are searching for
him. Ho Chi Moo isn't only mentally challenged but he is also mute. He still
lives with his father and for work, he breaks into other people's businesses at
night and sells their things. Food stalls that is and yes, he mostly forces them to
buy or eat things. This character was one of my main grievances with the film
upon my first time viewing. His overtly eccentric attitude and extreme
delinquency not only puzzled me but also left a bad taste in my mouth.
The director use the rare shot as his way make his story look smooth.
Actually, this film is an experimental film. experimental films provide a new
way of seeing the world that is free from the traditional sense of "storytelling"
and, instead, communicate in a purely visual manner. (Hyland & Marlow,
2006). From a semantic views, as we can see the cinematography techniques are
very clearly. On the opening scene where the agent ( starring Michelle Lee) are
shaky while his killer sit back from her while he is smoking. This scene the
director are using the extreme close up shot and wide lens. From this visual, it
give the great visual to the the emotion about the character.
Wong Kar Wai is tend to use the eye fish lens technique but he doesnt
use it actually. On the fisrt opening scene, Wong are using the close up
technique and focus with wide angle. As a result, the visual looks like he use the
fish eye lens. He tried to capture the emotion of his characters using that
technique with different way. Falln angel film are using the handheld style as a
major shooting style. It make the audience can watch and feel the film closely.
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The camera always follow the character. It look like the cameraman are
hiding somewhere else to record what does the character do. We can see the
different between the others commercial film with this Hong Kong film. On the
other hand, this film is giving the abnormality visual style to the audience. The
style is rare and not much of the directors at that time is using that technique. As
we can see in this film, there are more shot that use close up technique and
medium close up. "Fallen Angels" is discussing the relationship and the distance
between people . Wong are trying to show to the audience the feeling each of
his characters through shot. In the same time, the director also use this close
technique to explain the indifferent of people.
. In Fallen Angels, the character's face or body often occupy most part of
the frame and with the use of wide angle lens, the audience can feel the strange
and alienated of the characters. Likewise the two shot with wide angle lens have
a similar effect two character in the same scene but seem that they have no
relationship at all.
In the same time, every shots are helped with the colour and the white
balance to move the storyline. The colour and the white balanced plays an
important role beside of the powerful of each shot. If we can see in this film, the
opening scene where the professional killer and the agent are meet together, the
colour are black and white gives the meaning to this scene. There also have a
scene where the shot are taken by close up and the warmth colour is used. In
this scene the director want to show the passion of the character.
The opening scene hints at a salacious plot worthy of the visual shindig
man, woman, passion, control. But with enough style, story comes to seem

disposable, and any semblance of a plot soon dissolves amidst the barrage of
neon, nylon, gun smoke, velocity and precipitation. Fallen Angels adopts the
largest number of close shots. The closer the shot is to the actor, the closer the
audiences can approach to the characters inner world. In this work, characters
face or body often occupies over half of the space. However, under the
exaggerated and distorted ultra wide angle lens, a strange and alienated feeling
is presented by the characters.
The shot of double characters is also likewise. Lets take the scene that
Wong Chi-Ming ran into his old classmate and the emotional scene between
Punkie and Chi-Ming as an example. Under the extraordinary vertical feeling
spatially presented by wide-angle lens, even if characters are in the same room,
it seems that ages had already passed. The shaky shots and mysterious lighting,
as well as the dreamy background music also add certain illusionary taste to the
film, just like the reversed time and space.
By virtue of the marginal figures, Wong delivered the loneliness feeling
to us (or experienced our loneliness through these figures), but he didnt offer
an exact answer to this. Maybe its because the answer is too complicated. Most
of the characters in the film are on the verge of losing their job and grumpy,
making them incompatible with the mainstream society. Wong pointed to this
ostentatious materialistic society. He left several shots in the film especially to
those products of urban civilization. The huge sign of McDonalds. Lays potato
chips in the bar, the Coca Cola that attracted too much attention, Heineken beer,
elevated train, TV, jukebox, and Panasonic fax machine, which was still quite
prevailing in 1995, as well as Chi-Mings residence, which was just like a cage,

it is apparent whether these products made it convenient for interpersonal

communication, or enlarged the distance among people.(Howard,2011)
Film is motion. In Fallen Angels, things are on the move. City streets,
people, the camera, the air. There are no still shots the camera is on the go
along with the action. There is no distance between camera and world.
Unfortunately, Wong seems more interested in experimenting with his camera
than creating tangible characters for the audience to root for. Ordinarily, that
alone would be enough to sink a movie, but in the case of Fallen Angels, this is
not so. Every shot in this film is so exciting.
The shots hot mostly in extreme close-up on a hand-held camera with a
wide-angle lens, Fallen Angels stylishy offers brooding film noir painted with a
vibrant, expressionist palette. It give the the emotion of every characters in this
film through the shot. The extreme close up shot was so powerful and give the
big impact to the audience. The murder scenes are wonderfully choreographed,
more visually beautiful and emotionally void that even Scorcese's. Topped with
nervy, ambient noise and set to kitsch Hong Kong pop music, Fallen Angels is a
story set in a hyperreal Hong Kong.( Lanister, 2014)
In the same time, there is a shot High angle shot with wide-angle lens to
show the scene. The lighting with the colour of the scene make a special effect.
There also have Over shoulder shot with camera shake and fast walking allow
the audience to feel that the character is in hurry. There a scene where the main
character are finding something in the room. In this scene, the camera has shot
from the outside of the room. Shot through a window or door make the audience
as an observer and stalking the character.

Beside there a scene where the one of the character are facing the mirror
with the medium close up shot. This shot plus the mirror means that it try to
reflect the character ith difference between the outside world ang the inside
world. Wide angle close up on the face of the character to know she dont care
what happen beside herself.
In conclusion, The shot of the film fallen Angels explained everything
that contributes to the narrative. the othe things like colour, music score and
white balanced also plays an important role to move the stroryline.

REFERENCE
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Hyland, T., & Marlow, J. (2006). American experimental film. Green Cine.
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