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The short film begins with a close up of an elderly woman's hand. So far we know nothing about her, other than fact that she can't make the rice cooker function. The background also hints that this woman is in the kitchen, and the audience understands that this may be her home and she is trying to cook dinner. Close ups on her face reveal her confused state, already stating the basic situation of the story.
As she exits from the kitchen she quickly realizes that she must buy something for her granddaughter to eat. The cinematographer does an exquisite job by filming from a bird's eye view (high angle) making the old woman look feeble and innocent. It makes for a more interesting shot compared to a normal waist shot.
As the grandmother leaves we see a cross shot between her and her grandchild. The shot is very tight, not only so we can focus on the characters speaking but so we can see that their situation is intense. Discussing what to get for dinner has never been so serious, but all joking aside the audience begins to characterize the people in the story. The non appreciative daughter, and the forgetful grandma.
The cinematographer does well to indicate what is happening in the film by their use of extreme close ups. The attention to detail, explains the events in the story without the proper use of dialogue. This technique places the viewer in a situation where they use their own perception to piece out the story. It resembles the qualities of a silent film, where you can't understand what they're saying and everything's painted in black and white which leaves you wondering what truly is happening.
Now the grandma is lost in the city. Her sorrowful eyes and anguish clearly written all over her face. In this complication, the following shots express what is called as depth of field. In other words, there are objects in focus along the Z axis (the camera's film direction.) By focusing on other parts of the background, it creates depth to the scene and shows that this woman is all alone in a frantic setting.
An important technique that I noticed was the use of the aperture. The camera directly films a blinking stoplight, which if not properly adjusted would blind the entire shot. Since it was filmed at night, a large aperture was needed to capture it. Notice how the lights spread instead of containing to one object, it adds dramatic effect to the plot.
Some focus techniques are done as well. As indicated by the a close up on the woman's face, and then sudden focus to her surroundings. This shift between an object and their background is called a rack focus. This is also exemplified when she is talking to her grown up daughter, not only is she slightly blurred but since grandma is the key focus you can also see the sweat rolling off her face which leads to dramatic tension.
The story ends with grandma reuniting with her daughter, and finally feeding her. The shot zooms out slowly, as they are reunited as a family, and gradually fades to black. Only for the audience to realize that the grandma is an unstable woman with the mental illness of Dementia. The whole time she was lost and finally happy to be found. However it opens up to the reality that many families suffer from this disease.
This film was very well made and I liked how you pointed out all the different vocabulary. I liked the shots and they used the closeups well showing the actor's emotions. The shot with the traffic light worked well and I liked how you also noticed that. A few criticisms, I think you should have used how the character's emotions come into play in the storyline. I also think you could have talked more about how well the shots were and how they also played well into the film
ReplyDeleteThe analysis of this film was very deep, I agree with many of the author's observations. I was amazed at how they even analyzed the aperture size in order to create a dramatic effect. The author responded to many of the shots in the film, and accompanied it with many screenshots which were very relevant to what was being described. I was also amazed by the fact of the message the film has, compared to mine being a standard sci-fi action film. There isn't much for me to critique on, the author did a splendid job. All i can say is that i wasn't very pleased with the structure of the film itself, like the complications and climax of the film weren't very noticeable.
ReplyDeleteI like that you analyzed every aspect of the film from the acting to the effects of the different lighting. The analysis of the cameras angles shows the film maker's intentions of the themes of the film. Looking at the basic plot of the film was interesting, but the film itself moved slowly, and there wasn't really an exciting climax.
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