SPARROW
Dir. Johnnie To(2008)
Pottinger Street, Central,Hong Kong
The protagonists of the film are four idle pickpockets. They are Aqi, Zhenbo, Xisu, Ma Zai, of which Aqi is the eldest among them.They stole from pedestrians,mostly for fun.One day, they suddenly met Jenny, who seduced four “Wenques” one by one, and brought disaster to them, under questioning. It turns out that Jenny wants to get rid of the control of the rich Mr. Fu, so they need them to steal her passport for her. After a battle of wits, Jenny got her passport as she wished.By contrast, the thief’s leader, Aqi, first encounters Jenny on Pottinger Street. The street is quite steep, the pavement is paved with stones, and it is designed to be concave and convex, which is convenient for pedestrians to get on and off, and it is also convenient for rainwater to run off along both sides, also known as stone street. Through this feature, I discovered this place.
The Pottinger Street in the movie is relatively old. Behind Ah Qi, you can see that Pottinger Street was being built at that time. Through the method of frontal shooting, you can see that the Pottinger Street in the movie is a very straight line. Moreover, the stone road is very steep, and it seems that the road surface is not wide. At that time, the pedestrian passages on both sides of Pottinger Street were relatively old and looked rough. The current Pottinger Street is not much different from the one in the movie.Now,the road has been repaired, and the pedestrian passage next to Pottinger Street has been refurbished and paved with a smooth layer floor, and the dividing railing in the middle of the road was also replaced. The shops on the street had also closed down at the time and were replaced with new ones.
In the film, following the footsteps of Jenny through a continuous shot, Pottinger Street was shot from the community park next to Pottinger Street. When Jenny walked out of this community park, she happened to meet Aqi taking pictures on Pottinger Street, so Pottinger Street was the background where the protagonists Aqi and Jenny first met. The film arranges the first encounter of the protagonist through a series of mirroring arrangements, and introduces a series of stories between Aqi and Jenny. For example, it is a sequence of Jenny walking to Pottinger Street in the community park, and then transferred to Aqi to shoot at a fixed point, through the steep and straight features of the Pottinger Street, through Aqi’s change in Jenny’s expression after seeing Jenny, and with Aqi Jenny shot under the lens of Qi’s camera reflects the beauty of Jenny in Aqi’s mind, paving the way for Aqi to take risks for Jenny. The purpose of choosing the shot in Pottinger Street is to express the temptation of the first encounter through the characteristics of the street.
Nie Jingfeng,3035934975
References
Google map:
文雀 2008 (粵語高清) | Sparrow,YouTube:
You have broken down the camera movement and character blocking detailedly with regard to Pottinger Street. Yet I wonder if you have more virtual field trip materials to further your analysis? How does the film represent the street? How is it different from reality? Why is such an unusual street chosen as the set? You could do more research to answer these questions in order to have a deeper understanding between the film and the space.