Perez and 'In the Mood for Love'

Who enjoys playing a game that allows the participant to win every time? It is not a game anymore but a habit that abandons the challenge and effort of play in the interest of delivering a very defined end result or prize. According to Gilberto Perez, dramatic use of the camera is like such a game in which the action on screen is presented as "fact, excluding all other possibilities" much like the aforementioned sort of game would exclude any risky or alternative ways of playing.

However, the dramatic camera need not be the only possible approach to filmmaking, according to Perez. In Wong Kar-Wai's 2000 film In the Mood for Love, the use of the camera suggests the observation of a single individual that acknowledges the limited scope of his account, powerfully illustrating Perez's idea of a narrative use of the camera.

Throughout the film, there appears to be a governing strategy of minimalism or incompleteness to the visuals that further enhances the idea of a partial view. There are almost no wide shots throughout the entire film. For a film exclusively about people and amorous relationships, there is an unusual emphasis on the fragmentation of space - even when the scene is clearly portraying two people interacting. Despite how unusual or disconcerting this approach may be upon an initial viewing, however, there is a gratifying cohesiveness to the subjectivity of the camera that underlines the essence of the Perez's narrative camera.

In one particular scene in the film, filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai fuses the revelatory nature of a dialogue scene between two potential lovers, Mrs. Chan and Chow Mo-Wan, with a more dynamic, flowing moving narrative camera. The scene starts simply enough, emphasizing details and moments; igniting some motifs which will be repeated and amplified later on in the film. The fun begins (for the narrative accountant) when Mrs. Chan, whose character has been established as naive and submissive, interrupts the passive nature of the conversation with a question that may, for the opposite character, lead to a long-anticipated expression of his feelings for the other. Immediately, the camera, as if attached to the renewed interest of the narrative accountant, quickly pans between the two characters, eager to hear their responses as they are delivered from the characters' mouths.

In conclusion, Wong Kar-Wai’s 2000 film In The Mood for Love fully demonstrates the use of Gilberto Perez’s concept of a narrative camera which serves to free the audience from the godlike posturing of theatrical drama while accommodating a more articulate and journalistic style of filmmaking.