Mise en scene

Mise en scene – Scene from Happy Together (1997)

Scene from movie Happy Together, by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai

Mise en scene means designing all the elements, like composition, lighting, costume, etc, to tell a story in an artful way.

Here is a scene from Wong Kar Wai’s movie, Happy Together.

Director choose to use black and white in this scene because the main characters broke up at this time. It shows the sadness and how boring the life is after the break up. The picture becomes colourful later after they are together again. In this scene, director using mirror to achieve the “frame in frame” effect. Before this scene is a close-up shot on the other guy’s face, so it will be too pressure and lack of variety if the film keeps using close-up shots during the argument. Director use a medium shot to have some breathing space, but at the same time keeps the tension between the characters by using mirror to divide the frame.