Cinema as Weather by Kristi McKim

Author:Kristi McKim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

and dire; then the sequence cuts back to a shot around the wall, closer than the original framing and casting them within an almost-cavernous space, absent of streetlamps.

The uneven brick texture of the left foreground frames their blurred and softened two-shot in frame right as they gently slump against the wall and stand together but with distance between them. Another cut positions Chow in medium close-up foreground, with Chan in background, out of focus, as they discuss phone messages and Chow reveals his plan to travel to Singapore for work. “I thought we wouldn't be like them,” he says, “but I was wrong. You won't leave your husband, so I'd rather go away … feelings can creep up just like that.” After he reveals his love for her, he asks that she do one thing for him: “I want to be prepared.”

The camera follows this exchange by breaking continuity rules and shifting into a montage of varying views of the scene that begins with the camera behind the railing, framing Chow speaking with Chan as rain falls hard in the background. Following this shot, an extreme close-up of the light fixture under which the camera had previously rested while awaiting Chan's return (during the first rain scene) precedes a shot of the ground as water pools along a dark surface and the falling rain seems more audibly distant. Chan and Chow move to a brighter space, no longer under the rain or awning, and rehearse their departure. The rain in this film thus tracks their gentle beginning, his solitary reflection, and their more urgent realization and confession together. This final scene incorporates the umbrella as a prop that forces the issue, similar to her slippers when she inadvertently spends the night in his apartment. Soon after this final rain scene, as they rehearse their goodbyes, Chan breaks into tears, and Chow consoles her: “this isn't real.” Yet the tears remain as real as the rain, both conjured yet demonstrative of interiority as visibly manifested in atmospheric gravity.

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