Movie Review: Romancing in Thin Air

Figure 1: Romancing in Thin Air

This movie is a 2012 Hong Kong-Chinese contemporary romantic drama film directed by Johnnie To. The theory that applied in "Romancing in Thin Air" is cognitive film theory. This film theory is focuses on the viewer’s perception of visual and sound information. It is also focuses on the ways that viewers organize and categorize these perceptions in order to derive meaning from a film. According to Bordwell, Cognitive holds that people's perceptions, feelings, and action result in significant part from processes which go beyond the input to the senses.  

Figure 2: Romancing in Thin Air scene

Audiences can understand this movie directly with the the film begins very slowly, allowing its audience time to adjust from the media frenzy of Michael's (Louis Koo) public humiliation to the quiet serenity of Shangri-La. Besides that, using numerous lengthy wide angle shots to take in the beautiful surroundings, at the same time introducing Sue(Sammi Cheng) and her motley crew of gal pals who populate the hotel. The forests and mountains are captured through wide-angle shots, which exalt the beauty of Yunnan landscape and the intimate nature of the two main characters' quiet bonding. This wide-angle shots had portrayed how breathtaking is the place and make audiences easier to comprehend with why Michael will come to this high lodge place to calm himself. If ever Michael needed the perfect environment to detox and find his feet again, the fresh Yunnan air and five adoring women will surely prove the best medicine. Audiences can sense the coldness through the winter attire that actors wearing and snow-covered scenery succeeds in creating a world that different with level ground.  

Reference:
Bordwell, D 2008, Cognitive Film Theory, viewed 29 March 2017,
<http://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/13141/mod_resource/content/1/david%20bordwell%20-%20cognitive%20film%20theory.pdf>.