![]() In Lester’s garden, inside the vases located in different buildings, in the form of bouquets or petals. Its most compelling manifestation, however, is expressed through red roses that can be traced almost everywhere. It can be detected in most of the scenes of the film, brushing furniture, household appliances, accessories and clothes. Red is indisputably a central motif in American Beauty. And all of these abstract but coherent notions could be substantiated in no other colour than red. In the Mood of Love is chiefly a film that negotiates traumas, hopes and fears. Red becomes, therefore, an incarnation of this exact contradiction: grief against the will to live and condemnation against exsanguination. Throughout a reconstruction and a re-enactment of this traumatic event, they verge into a trip into their own feelings that are based on the contradiction of being betrayed but still experiencing a natural call to feel passion and desire. The two protagonists of the movie have a rough time as they are both cheated by their unfaithful spouses. Red expresses first of all what is so eloquently phrased in the title of the film: love, the need to love and be loved. This is partly a by-product of Christopher Doyle’s canny and stirring cinematography that complements Wong Kar-wai’s obsession with warm, saturated colours. The magnificent cheongsam dresses of Maggie Cheung, the retro tapestry covering the walls of the tiny Hong Kong rooms and apartments, the dancing curtains and warm bed covers are all painted in hues of red. In the Mood for Love is probably Wong Kar-wai’s most highly praised film and it owes a huge part of its visual and intellectual appeal to colour red. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000) ![]() ![]() The examples below showcase the wide capacity of a colour to incorporate nuances that appeal simultaneously to human emotions, psychology and mind as it was realised and actualised by various directors in the history of cinema.ġ. From horror films to romantic comedies and art-house films to blockbusters, red seems to be utilised to express multifarious feelings that interact with the audiences both in a conscious and a sub-conscious level. In this list one can find movie titles that manifest different cinematic uses of colour red. If colours in general are essential constituents of a film’s mise-en-scène, capable of bearing meanings, symbolisms and emotional undertones red is in particular the one to accelerate this empathising process. This is a reason why it is usually preferred by filmmakers and cinematographers that want to transfer powerful images to their audiences. Red has undoubtedly a unique ability to awaken great feelings and thoughts to spectators. Furthermore, different cultures and societies provide colours with even more semantic dimensions. ![]() Each and every one of them is followed by impressions that have to do with the way that it interacts with the mind of the viewer. It is as known, as it is intelligible, that all colours function in a way that provokes human psychological responses. Reminiscent of roses, blood and fire and emblematic of love, passion and lust, colour red accompanies all of these things and situations in life that are intense, beautiful or mysterious. Red is probably the most charged of all primary colours.
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