Is the cinema a simulacrum of our city? Leung brought up the discussion of this in the text of “Urban Cinema and the Cultural Identity of Hong Kong”. It is undeniable that what movies show is ambiguous in a sense of whether it is virtual or real, representational or factual. Yet from my point of view, urban cinema is all of them.
Taking Hong Kong movies as examples, it is common that scenes of typical Hong Kong were being shown, from the glamorous side such as the skyline and the Victoria Harbour to the gloomier settings like the narrow and crowded flats. I see these all as descriptive virtual spaces in the urban cinema which shows the actual environment of Hong Kong, however, Leung sees them as a depiction of either positive or negative aspects of the city.
Leung might not be completely incorrect in a sense that the mise-en-scene or the filming techniques may give audiences such a feeling. He cited the example of Space Is Gold, saying that by panning through the conflict scenes in a narrow and cramped flat, the director wants to accentuate the unfavorable living conditions in Hong Kong. However, I think that the resentful emotions of the characters in such a setting should not be necessarily related as a corollary of such urban space. Ultimately, the size of a flat is just a piece of factual information delineated in the film, it is the story that stimulates one’s perception of the city.
Leung also mentioned a few examples that he thinks the director films the movie with a more political approach by incorporating the idea of cultural identities, such as Intersection, My City, and Paper Cutouts. However to me, the scenes in the films are just narrative, one’s fervor generated may not be utterly related to the film, but also the conditions of the society at that time and one’s personal experience.
The film is a virtual space, yet it illustrates a large amount of substantive and real spaces of a city, this is how cinemas are factual to me. However, through the plots, the narrations, and the characters, films also act as a representation of the directors’ notion of the city, sometimes also their aspiration to this metropolis. Urban cinema is abstract, cryptic, and ambiguous, therefore it also gives a lot of opportunities for the audience to interpret, imagine, and discern.
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