COMMENTS:

Master Wang's (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) POV shot constitutes perhaps the most extreme experiment with the fade in Hou Hsiao-hsien's FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI. The film's shot transitions are punctuated uniquely with fades. This particular shot, while certainly stamped with character subjectivity, hits the spectator most forcefully as a stylistic event due to the constraints the film had hitherto imposed upon itself. The parametric narrative of SHANGHAI produces this jarring gesture as a variant of its previous stylistic experiments. Master Wang's reaction to what he sees (in the POV shot), his angry demolition of Crimson's (Michiko Hada) possessions, is itself due to a misinterpretation of what he had seen, meaning that the 'content' of the shot reveals little in the context of the film's drama. What Wang thinks he sees is a matter of speculation, but clearly it leads him to believe that Crimson is having an affair with an opera actor. The shot itself shows very little in its 12-second duration and certainly not enough to suggest that Crimson is with another man. A floor-level shot depicts some garments strewn at the foot of a bed followed by the feet of a figure (a woman?) scampering about while (she) picks up some articles of clothing. The insert is swarmed in ambiguity; its meaning is secondary to its decorative qualities.

The peculiar effect created here results directly from the use of the fade device. On conventional terms, optical effects of this nature violate the temporal order of a narrative. But in SHANGHAI Hou rewrites the fade, using it in this particular segment to suggest simultaneity; although there is a slight change in camera set-up, there is no change in Wang's body position as he is peeking under the door frame in the 'before' and 'after' shots, meaning that there is no discernible temporal gap between them. The stylistic paradigm that the film locks itself into requires the use of fades and gives birth to this stylistic happening.

[ By Colin Burnett • December 09, 2004 ]