Explore
how stylistic choices contribute to the representation of the urban experience
in the films you have studied for the Urban Stories – Power, Poverty and
Conflict topic.
Catalysed
by the report of a young Zairian, Makome M’Bowole, who was shot at point blank
range whilst in police custody, Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine represents the urban underbelly of France with a sense of
verisimilitude, unmasking its fabricated and romanticised stereotype within
cinema. Portrayed through the recurring motif of a clock to segment the linear
twenty four hour narrative, Papamichael stated that this piece is a “fatalistic
account of society’s decline,”[1] as though a malevolent time
bomb is ticking alongside the audience’s crescendo of trepidation. Thus,
Kassovitz could be socio-politically reflecting and stabbing at the Hegemonic
ideologies of France through each technical code as a part of ‘cinéma de banlieue.’
For example, a cyclic theme runs
throughout the film; the camera consistently rotates at a 180 or 360 degree
angle to symbolise how inescapable the banlieues are in which the so-called ‘Under
class’ are entrapped into. In a scene within the film’s rising action whereby
the trio of protagonists are static, listening to the ringing diegetic sound of
a motorbike, the camera circles around the characters, implicit that the
dominating force of the higher classes is caging them into a lethargic state of
purgatory, the machine-like sound dehumanising these victims into, as protagonist
Vinz later comments, “animals in Thoiry.” This technique echoes the opening scene
of City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles,
which consists of montage editing, juxtaposing an extreme close-up of a knife
being sharpened with a black screen and then a distressed chicken. The frantic
and fast-paced editing of these contrasting images conjures a sharp and chaotic
atmosphere, suggestive of how living in the favelas in Brazil is alike to
living on the edge of a knife, the chicken an analogy of these people in
poverty who are also entrapped livestock. Furthermore, Kassovitz once quoted
that Paris is laid out “like escargot” due to its swirling streets, which not
only suggests that the location itself is a breathing character which the trio
revolt within in a state of warped conflict, but also demonstrates how they are
a victimised product of their own black and white environments.
Additionally, an extreme close-up of
a revolving escalator towards the film’s dénouement
is wooze-inducing and empowers the screen, again exemplifying the cyclic theme.
The mechanical mise-en-scene is perhaps symbolic of the rigidity of France’s
Hegemonic system and how it is never ending, which the bourgeoisie are carried
along upon and just single-mindedly accept. This revolving imagery is
furthermore reinforced by the mise-en-scene of Asterix’s apartment, which
displays Escher’s ‘Ascending and Descending’ painting on the wall. Escher’s
artwork typically consists of illusory metaphors, for instance in this
particular picture, stairs are merged together to form an inescapable and
mind-contorting fortress. The disorientated feeling behind Kassovitz’s
camerawork and encoded mise-en-scene through the recurring circular motif of
the film, therefore, could be an illustration of the ongoing riots occurring within
France surrounding the time of its release in 1995. These were a product of
their society’s Imperialistic ideologies, The French Policy towards non-white
ethnic groups being one of assimilation, and so the director channels the
perspectives of the oppressed with unique techniques, utilising the camera as a
‘stylo.’ Within the mise-en-scene of the film’s dénouement,
for example, a gargantuan piece of graffiti-work of the face of Charles
Baudelaire is plastered onto a wall behind the characters. The French
philosopher quoted that “The world only goes round by misunderstanding,”[2] reinforcing the continual racial
conflicts of France, his eye contact with the camera in the final scene’s
semiotics almost breaking the fourth wall to reflexively communicate to the
spectator that what they are watching is a reflection of their own society. After
all, “the real victim is not on screen but sitting in the darkened theatre.”[3]
This assimilation acted as a product
of Cultural imperialism in France, creating struggles with identity for those
living in the banlieues, represented through the film’s protagonists and their
injection of Western pop culture. For example, symbolised within the
mise-en-scene; Vinz’s bedroom is plastered with posters of American icons, such
as Marilyn Monroe and different wrestlers, whilst Hubert’s shows Muhammad Ali
and a black power symbol at the Olympics. When
Vinz is first introduced to the audience, he is acting out the renowned 'Are
you talking to me?' sequence from Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, snarling with his fingers in the shape of a gun
to himself in the mirror in the narrative. This not only implies the decay of
French tradition as the influence of pop culture is shaping Vinz into a figure
of brutality, the gun iconography also signifies his desensitisation to this
violence due to the thrust of the media. The way in which Vinz is pointing this
gun at himself, however, almost illustrates his conflict with his own
Jewish identity as there is a swelling racial divide within France, signified
by how the ‘new town’ in which La Haine was
filmed in consisted of over sixty different ethnicities and nationalities.
Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express furthermore portrays the urban world’s
Westernisation, a post-modern romance with the narrative hinging upon the
isolation of relationships in an environment of dense population and brand
saturation. Influenced by French New Wave cinema, one technique which the
director exquisitely utilises throughout the film is ‘Smudge motion’ to
represent the interrelationship between humanity and its surroundings or
mise-en-scene. This is applied with significance to the scene in which Cop 663
is sitting in the ‘Midnight Express’ café with a forlorn expression in the framing’s
background. However, in the foreground, a blur of vibrant colours consumes the
screen, whirring and dream-like, symbolic of how the world is passing by him as
he is lost and stagnant in a limbo-esque state, a recurring theme of the genre. The way in which his love
interest, Faye, is separated from him behind the counter with a blue heart on
her clothing reinforces how out of touch he is with humanity, the contrast in
colouring suggesting that Hong Kong can be a place of loneliness.
The blur from the ‘Smudge motion’
technique, conversely, conflicts with how the Western brands are cleansed and
dominate the mise-en-scene. For instance, when the manager at the café cleans
the coca-cola dispenser, it is metaphorical that he is refreshing Western
ideologies and America’s ethnocentrism. Thus, the enchanting and abstract aesthetics
of Kar Wai’s work is polysemic, commenting on how Hong Kong’s one hundred years
of independence with the British Empire was running out in 1994, as the country
got returned to the communist state in the millennium. For example, the ‘Woman
in blonde wig’ of the film’s first story in a voiceover quotes “I don’t have
much time left” to mirror society’s anxieties of being passed over. However,
the director’s motive was to reassure his home city that all would be
harmonious, her narration almost acting as a love letter to the audience,
linking with why Cop 223’s password is “Love you a million years.” At the dénouement
of the second story, an extreme close-up is used to show coins, Cop 663 stating
that he “decided to get some loose change.” The object an analogy for his
psychological and emotional change and advancement out of his purgatory, Kar
Wai poetically signifies that the country’s change will end in love and
tranquillity.