A WEST LAKE MOMENT, YAN HAO, YANG ZI (2005)
West Lake, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
A West Lake Moment was directed by Yan Hao and Yang Zi and released in 2005.The film tells the story of A Qin, a Beijing-based screenwriter, who meets Xiaoyu, a girl in Hangzhou. The two fall in love, break up, and finally get back together. The story takes place mainly in two places: Beijing and Hangzhou. As the title suggests, the West Lake in Hangzhou is undoubtedly the most important element of the film.
In the film, the director deliberately showed off the contrasting features of Beijing and Hangzhou. Beijing, in the film, is almost always a neon-lit city with high-rise buildings and characters walking in and out of modern steel and glass buildings. The streets are always bustling with people and cars. However, in the West Lake in Hangzhou, the camera always focuses on the scenery of lakes and mountains, pavilions and pagodas, small bridges and flowing water, and there are almost no people except the main characters.The film also hints at the difference between the two cities through a remark by A Qin: in Beijing, you can take 100 steps a minute, while in Hangzhou, you can only take 40. The West Lake in the movie is a mysterious and hazy place where all kinds of wonderful encounters take place. Every building and landscape of the West Lake has a history of thousands of years. Various past myths and legends, historical allusions and reality interweave together to form the mysterious, profound and beautiful West Lake in the film. However, in reality, the West Lake is a modern enough place. It is often crowded with people, and there are all kinds of large and tall buildings around it, like shopping malls. In reality, the West Lake is bright, busy and full of vitality.
The reason why the director makes the West Lake in Hangzhou so fresh and delicate, dreamy and picturesque is that this place has been turned into a symbolic background. West Lake is the place where love is cultivated and achieved in the movie. A Qin and Xiao Yu first met by the West Lake when they were young and fell in love there many years later. Thus the West Lake is portrayed as a place of leisure and relaxation. At the same time, West Lake is also a green treasure for A Qin to release the pressure in his work and nourish his mind of desertification. So the director highlights the beauty of the West Lake and downplays its bustle as a tourist destination. Relatively speaking, Beijing is the place where the conflicts between A Qin and her fiancee erupt, and it is a place where love is buried. Therefore, it is strengthened by the director into a steel forest full of pressure, which is a yellow desert. To sum up, a film can amplify a certain feature of a place to enrich its specific meaning and make it play a specific role in the film.
——Chen Yi, 3035638703
Left: The white walls and black tiles in Beishan Street, the West Lake. Scenes from the A West Lake Moment, 2005, directed by Yan Hao and Yang Zi. Right: Beishan Street, shot by Chen Yi in 2021.03.
Left: Broken bridge over the West Lake. Scenes from the A West Lake Moment, 2005, directed by Yan Hao and Yang Zi. Right: Broken bridge over the West Lake, which is crowded by people, shot by Chen Yi in 2021.03.
Films and photographs can amplify or diminish the image of a place through its narration. To “read” this space through Walter Benjamin’s take on aura and representation would be constructive in strengthening your argument. At the very beginning of your piece, you mentioned how Beijing is contrasted to Hangzhou in this film. You could also elaborate a little bit on the role of both cities in building up the storyline of the film. I was wondering if Beijing, where the male protagonist came from, was depicted as a bustling and masculine city in contrast to a calm and serene Hangzhou (the hometown to the female character). It could also worthwhile to reflect upon how the lake represented a space-in-between, the not-here-nor-there feeling and provided both characters with a common ground to start their story. Relating your analysis to one of the key ideas we have discussed in the class as well as the pictures you take on-site will be helpful for you to read through the site and build your argument.