The Ellington Kid is by far the worst of these shorts. It feels narratively weaker than all of the films prior, not really creating anything at all compelling or engaging. Aesthetically, it fares little better. The plot is a story within a story: a kebab shop customer tells the story to his friend who has bought a burger about a guy who got stabbed, ran into the shop, brought a gang chasing after him who then proceeded to get killed and apparently used to make the beef burgers. It’s clearly not meant to be taken seriously but it fails to really do or say anything. It isn’t entertaining enough to be fun and it isn’t saying enough to be meaningful in anyway.
The portions I admire from this film come right at the beginning: the quick cuts between the knife and the meat, intercutting with the titles. It works quite well, establishes a rather violent setup, as well as foreshadowing the ‘twist’ that we get at the end: that the meat may be human. It’s quick, it’s snappy, it feels fun to watch. I also really enjoy the intertitle which sets up that this is ‘based on a true story (mostly)’. It highlights the tale-telling, rumour nature of the story that is going to take place. It’s cheesy, but I feel it works within the setting of the film. The editing after this is consistently fast-paced: it keeps the film quick and on your toes, but also doesn’t allow you any time to stop and think about it (which I guess makes sense, I’m just not a fan and think it doesn’t really allow you to connect or engage in any way.) There are some shots that are quite effective, reflecting the urban environment that the stabbing takes place in. It is appropriately dark, but I think it feels a little too ‘gritty’. I think if you are going to do this, you’ve got to be over-the-top to the maximum with this, frantic movements, full of cliches. I want to feel the parody, rather than feel like someone is actually trying to make something serious here. When the guy runs into the shop, there is this awkward slo-mo effect added in editing - it works again for the tone in some ways, but I’m not quite sure again if it really adds much. It just feels like the whole film has very little to do. The director doesn’t have enough technical skill, the actors don’t have enough acting ability and no-one has enough originality to make it work. After a brief beginning to an action scene, it cuts away, back to the conversation of the two at the table. I like the idea of this: it leaves it ambiguous, it’s a fake story, so there’s no need for him to go into the gory details of the situation. The film all leads to this twist where the camera pans away from the two eating and to the owner smiling, sharpening his knives. It’s predictable, it’s cheesy and I think it could be good if the film felt like it technically held up or actually wanted to try and say something but I don’t believe it worked. It has a form of narration, in the same way something like The Arrival does, but of course it isn’t meant to be as hard hitting, and the sound isn’t done in foley here, the sound of one scene is just overlaying the other. It works well in terms of the storytelling technique but not any more than that really. I also like the credits music: it feels electronic, artificial, like the story being invented here. So, the aesthetics are weak, but perhaps fit the style in some ways. It’s all about matching aesthetics with genre and tone and to an extent, Dan Sully does manage it, but it doesn’t really hit me in the same way some of the other films here have. This film is definitely the least interesting narratively. All the other films here have had a narrative that made them stand out: whether it be in the experimentalism of Over, the ambiguity of Echo or the unique simplicity of Tight Jeans. Here, while it feels like the narrative should be more layered, it just feels rushed, all written around this one punchline. The only way it is slightly interesting is that you have two narratives going on at once: the false story and the real world conversation in the kebab shop. Mildly interesting is that neither of these narratives get a complete ending, nor do we know if they are true. The opening intertitle suggests that this may too be a story told to someone else. It’s an endless cycle and while it may tell us something about the nature of gossip and tale-telling, it doesn’t really do anything all that interesting with it. Applying Todorov is interesting, because the former narrative starts in media res and so doesn’t have an equilibrium, nor does it have a new equilibrium, while the latter has an equilibrium, but doesn’t really have a conflict or a new equilibrium: it just ends. While this works as a laugh for the spectator, it means development of any kind is limited. I do admire the usage of dialogue slightly and the performances of the guys in the kebab shop are good enough to elevate that part of the story well enough: the shock of Beefy, the guy with the burger and the kinda edgy gossiper of Nathan. The final shot isn’t like some of these other ambiguous endings: it isn’t saying anything with it, it’s just doing it for a laugh, which I guess, to an extent, sums up this film. It isn’t saying anything, it isn’t all that impressive, but, at least it gets a mild laugh out of you. Out of the eight short films I have watched, I’ve learnt a lot about how I’m going to structure my short film: Over taught me that I should attempt to experiment with the narrative structure and go against the traditional, Operator and The Arrival taught me how to make a simple, short yet engaging narrative through simple filmmaking methods, Slap taught me a lot about constructing identity and representation as well as the importance of performance, The Fly and Echo had various interesting choices with the cinematography, editing or music that made them stand out. The Ellington Kid felt like it really only taught me not to make a film like this one: it’s too difficult to do in the short amount of time, you need a much higher budget, and the tone is so tricky to get right. The Ellington Kid failed in all these areas and seeing how it turned out, I think I’m going to go in a different direction with mine.
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Echo is perhaps one of the strongest narratives of the shorts I’ve seen so far, but I do feel its presentation could do with a little bit of work. The opening is undoubtedly the strongest part of this film, showing the protagonist, seventeen year old Caroline, receiving a phone call in the street that her father has died. The film however is really all about, unlike the previous short, about spectator perception, rather than the characters, as we find out she was faking the original phone call to get money, presumably for cigarettes, as frequent cutting (particularly to a close-up on a lighter) seems to suggest. The film’s complex relationship with the truth is perhaps its most interesting aspect but I would say it doesn’t even come close to exploiting this enough and unfortunately suffers by seemingly trying to play it safe as the film reaches its conclusion.
Aesthetically, the film is quite smart at points. There’s a similar shot at one point, where there is a clear focus on Caroline’s reflection. Again, like with Slap, it suggests duality, veiled or hidden identity. She’s clearly in conflict and I think it does a good job of representing the nature of truth in the film. Most of my interest in the visuals of the film come in the opening, where the sound is completely diegetic, suggesting the overwhelming frenzy of the high street around her. The camera again refuses to stay still, tracking her movements, reflecting this situation greatly. This is even more of the case in the final attempt at the scam, where a slo-mo effect is also clearly edited in afterwards but the camera spins, it’s dizzying, it seems to reflect her and the spectator’s fight for truth. Editing in the final scene is more impressive still cutting between two angles on her face, it creates duality but also a bizarre feeling of being watched. Either way it’s greatly effective, it adds to the panic of the entire situation. The middle of the film is slower, but still expresses some ideas to add to this character. I like how in the argument with her mother, it’s a shot where the head is just out, and then the mother is consistently framed out of focus or obscured. It suggests a lack of parental guidance, a real lack of parental care maybe. The second scam is far more simple, as it's clearly framed from the perspective of her younger brother. It’s initially framed quite smartly behind a bus’ window in a long shot. It creates the idea that we as a spectator are looking in on this character but can’t really quite understand, it’s a very complex narrative idea, about whether she is drawing off real experience here or not. The use of pathetic fallacy here is also rather striking, with the rain clearly reflecting the changing mood of the film. It’s filled with a weird kind of sadness that I actually find it really hard to pinpoint. It is worth looking at the performance here, played by Lauren Carse, who I weirdly found more believable in the fake role within in the film than in the actual role she’s trying to play if that makes sense. Her character’s acting felt more real than hers, which legitimately could be a deliberate choice. The implication is that there may have been an original phone call of which all of this is based on, but we’re never quite sure, and her performance really works well to reflect that, you never know whether the emotions are real. Final point to mention is about the score: sound is mostly diegetic but when it does come on, it is quite powerfully haunting, almost ghostly. The whole film feels really ghostly and I can’t quite point out why, but the camerawork and the overall tone of it certainly contributes to this, maybe even the performance of the brother, it certainly has a strange nature to it that I’m not sure if I would actually be able to capture. Narratively, the film is probably the most complex so far, but I think this does it a great disservice rather than helping the emotion it feels like Arnold, the director, is trying to convey here. A really interesting idea I read online is about how really the character doesn’t change at all throughout the film and instead, it is our perception that changes, therefore creating character development. In that area, it’s one of the most interesting ideas around character development I’ve seen: nothing really changes here, but our own personal perspective does. Applying Propp to Caroline’s character would be really interesting: she clearly starts off as a hero, but is she a villain in the middle? And then is she a hero at the end or not? I don’t know how I personally feel about the effectiveness of the whole ambiguity around the phone call at the end. It’s smart in some ways, but the way it was done felt weird: it almost felt as if there needed to be another ten minutes or so of this film. But, like The Arrival, it leaves an open ending: we’re really not sure what was happening, whether any of the calls we heard were really legitimate, if her father died recently, or a long time ago. The only time the death is mentioned as a legitimate truth is by her brother who states: ‘How does he know about Dad?’. There is no score here to reflect this. It’s just very matter-of-fact. Reality is so confused in this film, that it becomes hard for the spectator to understand or to engage. I actually personally find the first five minutes or so, including the twist that she was faking it, to be deeply effective. I’m just not sure if you needed another shift in perspective. The change in perspective already works and I would have actually really enjoyed it being left here but Arnold clearly wants to go far more psychological with his idea here and I’m not sure it totally works. Overall then, if I was to take ideas from this one, I think it would be more to do with leaving the concept alone once I’ve got it. Keep it simple. You can explore some really interesting ideas (e.g. look at Tight Jeans or Operator) without doing something too weird narratively. I do like the ambiguity presented here, the camerawork is really good at times and the performances are fantastic, but I can’t quite help feeling that the film has something missing, something that failed to grasp me after that initial shift in perspective. She was unable to be redeemed for me due to that last scene, because she could be faking it again. Is she exploiting the grief? Is the grief real? I guess the fact I’m wondering these questions makes the film effective in some way, but I do prefer engagement during the film to be there too, and I want it to be slightly less overly-complex. You can keep it simple but effective. This one seems to prioritise confusing complexity and ambiguity over a good story, and I’m not sure if I like that. This film to me again is another deceptively simple one: it’s very simply shot, there isn’t a lot going on on-screen, but this one is far more important in terms of the usage of dialogue, it seems to explore, to me anyway, a lot about identity, most notably racial here. The plot is humorous, yet simple: three black teenagers wait for their friend when a white teenager walks past, prompting the question: ‘How can a man wear jeans that tight?’ I love the discussions that spring so well from this one question and the performances here are competent enough to be able to successfully communicate the ideas here.
Firstly, looking at the visual and audio elements here, they are really quite simple. I do think the music that plays at the beginning is very important: it’s slightly industrial, quite menacing in some ways and I think the urban area is captured here successfully by director Destiny Ekaragha. There are long shots showing two similarly aged teenagers fighting, as well as a montage, often sped up, of nearby markets. The music, however, does seem to remain quite eerie until the dialogue begins. There feels like a deliberate tonal contrast here: the boys’ conversation is clearly quite comical, right up until that final punchline at the end. It’s clearly not a film meant to be taken too seriously, although there are arguably some ideas at play here. The sound after this and until the credits, when the music comes back once more, is purely diegetic, focused on the conversation of the boys rather than any other aspect. The dialogue, notably, is quite fast-paced, also full of colloquialisms too, which adds to the whole feeling of rawness here. The whole thing feels like you could have just filmed a conversation: it’s not meant to be anything that exciting, yet it still comes off as entertaining at many points throughout. The cinematography does have some interesting points about it: I like how it’s always moving, it keeps up spectator engagement, as well as reflecting some of the more back-and-forth moments. Other moments are genuinely beautiful, such as when their friend does come out of the house for a moment while they are waiting, there’s an absolutely fantastic long shot that captures both the boys sitting on the wall waiting and the apartment in the distance. It captures both character and landscape in one simple shot. The other movements of the camera work in terms of the gaze of the teenagers. When the guy in the tight jeans walks past, the camera tracks along with their eyes, the focus clearly on the jeans. Just in terms of other smaller things in the visual aesthetics here, the costumes on the teenagers with the orange hoodie, and the red and blue on either side, does look pretty visually appealing. It sticks out really well against the background from behind: doubt there’s any real visual significance behind it, but it does create a nice little contrast with the background (and maybe a presence of colour helps juxtapose the darkness of the white guy’s clothes as he walks by, helps pick up on that idea of his ‘emo’ clothing style better). Anyway, I wouldn’t say this film’s interests are on the aesthetics but are clearly more focused on the narrative and ideological messages that they want to put across. This isn’t discounting the aesthetics of the film, but I do think the ideas of the film are far more interesting. So, narratively, I guess there isn’t really a theory that can be easily applied here. There isn’t a structure as there isn’t really a proper beginning and end, we’ve just captured this one moment, and the conversation is almost cyclical at the end, but doesn’t really go that far. The one that does immediately spring to mind though is Levi-Strauss because most notably, there is a clear racial divide going on here and the contrast (while maybe not so much in conflict here) is between whites and blacks and potentially the identities that come with that. The most notable example of the discussion of identity (and it is really important to keep in mind, that yeah, while there is something to be gained and said here, it is still clearly taking a comedic tone, it’s meant to be funny) is the idea of pride in their heritage: how black people in the past were previously oppressed due to them having larger penises than white people. It’s clearly comic and the whole concept is really amusing but it does show a sense of black identity within these teenagers and a pride and awareness of it. In their conversation about white women compared to black women, there’s a similarly clear racial divide taking place here. I think what this film does, and why I assume it’s been picked, is how it explores perspective and gaze. The most common exploration of gaze is with the male gaze (and I guess this could be the case here too) but I feel like here we have a clear example of a very obviously black perspective and gaze on the world, in terms of the way white people are viewed in general but perhaps in terms of how the world is captured around them, with a sense of clear grounded realism in the environment. Anyway, I like the ideas being explored here and I think there’s definitely something being done with black identity. Overall then, I really liked this film. It’s simple, it’s nothing too out there, and that’s quite important for my film. Mine too needs to try and be as simple as possible, yet still try and capture some ideas. The performances here are important, but not too important, there’s a lot of dialogue but the delivery is just consistently fine enough to make it work. What I really take away from this film the most though is the idea of gaze and perspective that I really would like to get in mine. In the same way as Operator and The Arrival, there feels to be a very grounded conversation taking place here, it feels real, it feels natural, yet with this set perspective and gaze on society. I really want to capture something similar in my film. The Arrival, directed by Daniel Montanarini, is probably my favourite of the shorts so far: it's not too long, straight to the point, yet brilliantly effective and bold in boths its aesthetic and narrative presentation, dealing with a very human story and some weighty themes. The concept of the film must surely have at least been inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants, which again concerns a woman at a train station, trying to decide whether to abort a pregnancy. The difference here is there is a notable absence of the male character: the decision is firmly on the female, which I think for this film works really well, the unseen male character almost an oppressive force in this decision (not in the sense that he’s directly harming her, just in terms of the oppressiveness of the thoughts this causes). The film feels claustrophobic, like she’s trapped in her position and her own thoughts, yet ends on something that feels like hope.
Similarly to the short story, the aesthetics of the film feel appropriately minimalist. The shot maintains itself on her, sitting in the cafe. At first, this image is unable to be clearly seen due to the frost on the door, but after the door is closed, the image becomes clear. To me, this feels like a simple idea: her thoughts are similarly clouded, she is unable to find her answer to this very difficult decision. While this shot starts out on a long shot, it slowly gets closer and closer to her until it ends on this medium close-up. We are honing in on her, learning more about her and her thoughts on the whole situation. Yet, while the shot is deceptively simple, it’s the people that come in around her that absolutely perfectly, fantastically capture the thoughts that are going through her mind as we hear her. The thoughts are all completely done with foley sound, it’s diegetic as it’s still in the world, but it is definitely done in the editing stage. However, the on-screen events are important, both in terms of the actor’s facial expression and reaction to the thoughts but also as she observes who enters the cafe. She seems to be looking at an old woman paying at the till when commenting how much time she has to decide: a reflection to her, potentially, of how, in reality, her time is purely limited or potentially, as she sees the woman alone, the want of a family. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. The point is: the visuals work with the thoughts to get the ideas across. Similarly, when a couple come in holding hands, she begins thinking of whether she loves the man, and whether that should affect whether she keeps the child. Again, this works well, we get both a visual and audio representation of her thoughts. The lighting is appropriately low-key throughout, backlit from behind, but there is a clear turning point when she hears the cries of a child. For a start, her thoughts certainly change here, but that’s more about narrative. What interests me more is the sound of the train arriving, a sudden breakage in the quiet diegetic sound heard so far in the story. The lighting gets much darker: this doesn’t really seem to reflect anything (as her mind is clearly made up here, her thoughts aren’t dark now) but it does show the train arriving, which again, signifies to the spectator that time is running out for this decision to be made. As the male character comes in, the camera tracks back out, suggesting we’ve let this scenario now. Her thoughts may not even be over, her decision may not still be entirely made, we don’t know what happens next, but this, again, doesn’t matter. Like Operator, the narrative may as well be cyclical, these thoughts are very likely to repeat once more. She’s unsure in the situation and I think the film as a whole clearly gets across the stress of such a heavy life-changing decision visually. Narratively, the film feels quite simple, but at the same time, it’s hard to assign a theory to it, if you wanted to try. Again, we do have a clear equilibrium, with her mind made up, wanting to have the abortion and at the end, she clearly decides to go through with the pregnancy, but the part in the middle doesn’t really work with Todorov’s structure. Actually, one of the parts of the film that really intrigued me straight away is more about the narrative framework of the film: all being focused around the decision on whether to get decaffeinated coffee, and therefore go through with the pregnancy or not. It’s so beautifully simple: this common, everyday decision, that turns into an internal debate about such a complicated, complex decision. To me, it could also suggest that these decisions aren’t going to end here, she’ll have more to make, it feels like just a slice of her life, rather than a finished narrative. There’s clearly more, but we leave the situation here, and I think that works quite well. It leaves some questions in the spectator’s mind, we don’t get all the answers and I believe Montanarini does this to leave the idea that these thoughts will be rattling in her mind all the time. It’s a constant conflict between having the pregnancy or having an abortion, and that maybe this conversation could change her whole decision once more. Like Hills Like White Elephants, the ending is completely ambiguous, we are told so little, yet are able to paint a detailed picture for ourselves of their relationship. I really like this one. There’s just something so effective about the whole concept, from the very simple cinematography going on her, the lack of editing, the engagement from the thoughts we hear, not purely visually focused. I just love being able to create an image in my mind of the future conversations, there’s a potential for the imagination of the spectator to be used, just as much as the director’s imagination. I really want to do something similar: I need to be able to give the spectator enough to be able to do something with the information given, but then leave it: allow them to construct something from that, allow them to use their imagination and create their own almost ‘next part’ to the story. The Arrival does this for me fantastically. Over is the most experimental of the shorts I’ve watched so far, in its narrative and its aesthetical style. The film presents a mystery to the spectator, and over just under fifteen minutes, begins to slowly reveal what happened. I’m not a huge fan of how long it takes to get to this resolution, especially as it’s easy as a spectator to be put off by the very long duration of shots. The film shows you the events in reverse chronology, starting by showing some flowers suggesting a death that took place and by the end, the story reveals itself as, to me, a far more ideological message, ending with the death of a immigrant trying to enter the country illegally by hiding in the landing gear of a plane, who falls from the plane. It is an extremely powerful ending and does make you stop and think for a moment, even if the technique in getting there isn’t as engaging as it could be.
The film is mostly comprised of very-long shots, which work successfully in allowing the spectator to try (likely unsuccessfully considering the unpredictability of the ending) to piece together what may have happened in their minds. It allows for some level of engagement, as different shots that show the spectator even less could really lose the focus. One very effective way of allowing for this engagement to be kept for over ten minutes is frequent intercutting with the evidence from the scene of the ‘incident’. The periodic cuts to this evidence, shot in close-ups, allowing the spectator to see everything, again giving us the illusion that we may be able to piece the true events together works fantastically. Personally, I did began to lose some engagement as the film went on though. The unbelievably slow pace of the editing, with shots lasting for minutes on end with very little action to look at, did challenge my attention span a little bit, but I think one micro-element that worked really well in the film was the usage of the sound. All the sound in the film is completely diegetic which means you do have quite long periods of silence, apart from some score over the credits (which is appropriately eerie and minimalist, allowing you to consider the events that took place), and so this allows you to almost take in the melancholy atmosphere of the situation. It does work well, and I love how while there is some dialogue in the film, it’s really muffled, out of earshot. It’s like we’re in the same position as the camera and so are unable to hear what is being said. I thought it was effective, but I do wonder if it was a contribution to how quickly I was able to become unengaged from the film. One thing I really admire is the sudden, actually very comparably loud noise of the body falling on the car though. It works really well at interruption our by-now almost transfixed, hypnotised gaze on the events. What’s interesting about this film particularly compared to the first three I’ve looked at is how performances play so little of a part in this one, they aren’t really important and blend out of the spectator’s attention as the film goes on. In terms of my short, this could be really important: it shows how you can still make some form of an effective narrative without performances, even if audience engagement is arguably lost. Key imagery such as the flowers, or even just the image of police, already create the meaning needed. The spectator can pick up the ideas and almost create a narrative for themselves, even without one really being there on screen. One final thing to note is the great use of foreshadowing. In the first shot, we see a plane in the background of the shot. It’s a clue that many spectators wouldn’t pick up and does allow for repeat viewing satisfaction, but while it’s slightly interesting, it doesn’t really add to the lack of engagement when rewatching. This film is similar to other narratively experimental films, such as Christopher Nolan’s Memento or Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, which both have similarly reversed narrative structure. The effect here is also very similar: it’s about trying to understand why something has happened, you show the last event, which may be quite shocking or at least create some level of intrigue for the spectator and then reveal information as events go along. Weirdly though, it actually allows for Todorov as a theory to be applied relatively easily. You can quite easily substitute a new equilibrium for an equilibrium as both imply a state of peace, a lack of conflict that will eventually take place. This still happens here, we start at peace, after the events of the incident, and then lead back into the conflict, trying to work out why or how someone died, and then ending at the new equilibrium, the incident is actually solved and if we were to keep going back in reverse, we would once again be at peace. With a higher budget, it would have been very interesting for the film to switch up the location, maybe just showing a shot of the aeroplane for a while. I actually would have liked that a lot, but I get that restrictions may have prevented that from being done as easily as they may have wanted. Anyway, the point is that the narrative structure here is relatively simple, it’s just turned the other way. The narrative works at creating interest in the same way, using Barthes idea of the enigma code, we can see how Threlfall creates the mystery and them reveals it slowly, using the text intertitle at the end to explain everything away (again, it may just be me but I feel there are missed opportunities here, if we can go back far enough, why not use something diegetic to inform us: I get it’s a harsh interruption to reality, but it could be more interesting to use something else). Overall then, Over certainly isn’t the most consistently engaging short of the bunch, and in some ways, loses its humanity and the power of its ideology in its persistence of experimentalism. I’ve always believed personally that by treading too far down the path of experimental narratives, general abrasive filmmaking or letting your creation get too far ahead of itself, you can certainly lose the power you are trying to make. This film is successful in that it shocks you, makes you think about the harshness of reality, but I want to make something hopefully more engaging, more human in its storytelling than this. I do really like the idea of a reverse narrative though, I’ve always enjoyed the usage of them if done well, but keep the shots simple, there’s no need for it to be so ridiculously long and drawn-out as it is here. Slap is a very different film to both Operator and The Fly, not least in that its nearly five times the length of those two films, but also due to the nature of the subject matter being explored here. The confrontation with standards of masculinity and identity set up here by Rowland is a very interesting premise and while I don’t necessarily believe he pulls off the admittedly difficult task of trying to portray some of the ideas he wants to get across, I think the narrative is constructed in such a way that scenes do create strong, powerful emotions and are genuinely quite shocking. I love the way the film builds up its broiling tensions into a final, explosive ending, yet it does feel far too quick at points.
Slap is far more visually focused than films like Operator: it wants to try and show us something with its visuals. There are multiple shots in the film where the protagonist, Connor, is framed through a reflective surface, looking like his image is duplicated. It creates a sense of duality in his identity: his lack of confidence due to the societal standards of masculinity fighting with his urges. This film is certainly concerned with realism, trying to capture an experience that many young people face. The sound, especially for the bulk of the first act, is as diegetic as possible. During the boxing scenes, the punches feel raw. When his friend is chased down for his sexuality, there is no score to reflect the rising sense of danger. Rowland tries not to glorify any of the situations taking place here, wants to keep it to the real, often brutal, nature of life. When the score is used, it’s actually used really well. When he walks to the party dressed in female clothing, the music feels like something you might hear on a punk album. A typically masculine sound provides the backdrop for something that challenges masculinity, as well as fitting with the usual ideas associated with punk of rebelling against the system: he is doing the same here, trying to fight against the masculine norms of society. When the film reaches its climax, the score is more melancholic, reflecting the state of the film’s ending. The first dialogue heard is quite colloquial, strongly accented, very masculine which I think also works quite well in terms of establishing this masculine, quite heteronormative world he lives in. However, what I think really allows the film to succeed where it does is the fantastic central performance from Joe Cole (who interestingly I’ve usually seen play quite heavily masculine roles, so it worked quite nicely as a performance in that sense) who manages to capture the experience relatively well. I think the film would falter a great deal more than it does if this performance wasn’t up to scratch. Just in terms of when I’m making my film, like with the last two, it does typically come back to needing good actors, and nearly all the films here show that, without the acting ability, that they wouldn’t be as strong. Of course, I’m not going to be able to find people who can act as well as professional actors, but I need to make sure they are as good as possible. Just in this film actually, by far one of its weakest elements, is some of the supporting cast, particularly Elliot Tittensor who plays Archie, Connor’s gay friend, whose performance I found to be particularly weak, more noticeably so as the film reached its ending. I had some issues with that whole representation in general but I do understand what the film was going for. Rowland clearly tries to represent the world at its harshest and I guess he does get that part across. Narratively, the film is quite interesting. I think if you’re going to try and apply a narrative theory here, theorists like Propp or Todorov probably don’t work to well. There is a clear conflict in the confrontation with his own identity that takes place throughout the film but there is also a lack of resolution here. It, a bit like Operator, feels like we’ve jumped into Connor’s life for a little bit and are experiencing this experience alongside him. The best theory to apply here would actually probably be Levi-Strauss as there are clear binary oppositions at play here. The most obvious one is a conflict between masculinity and the obvious binary opposite with that is femininity, clearly being represented in the film by the dress and makeup, in harsh contrast with the very male-dominated boxing environment. I guess you could make the argument for a conflict between homosexuality and heterosexuality as well, both in the conflict with Archie but also in his own struggle with his sexuality. The ending is slightly interesting, I like something that suggests more will happen, and it definitely doesn’t give the spectator all the answers they are looking for which I do admire in a sense. I like how Rowland tries to make everything grounded in reality, even if sometimes it doesn’t quite work out. Slap isn’t a great short and I really don’t think it manages to thematically explore everything it wants to, failing really to grasp at exactly the problems Connor faces. He tries, but doesn’t really succeed at presenting the world he wants to present, and some of the characters aside from Connor are very poor. Joe Cole’s performance, the music and sound editing choices in general are probably what make the film work on any level for me. Cinematography is competent with there being a really nice long-shot that frames the power station rather nicely in the background but mostly underwhelming (some good POV shots every now and again too). The direction is really what lets this film down though: I feel like it had a basic idea but couldn’t explore it fully enough in the twenty-five minutes it allocated itself and so failed at getting them across to the spectator. In my film, I need to make sure I have enough direction and concept of what I’m going to do to ensure that the film accurately reflects the ideas I want to reflect. The Fly is an entirely different exercise to Operator. Rather than focusing on portraying a realistic, grounded situation, this short presents an absurdist descent into madness through anger and frustration. I actually quite enjoyed this short for what it was, it wasn't as deeply engaging as Operator, but it worked in developing one little concept into a much larger one in a similar way. It reminded me of (and was surely influenced by) the Breaking Bad episode Fly which had a similar concept: one-location, trying to get rid of a fly, and having a slight comedic tinge to it (often due to the escalation of frustration). However, what I think distinguishes and breaks it apart from the episode is just how absurd it takes it, with him eventually shooting the car and ruining the heist, after many attempts to get rid of the fly. It's a really good exercise in escalation and ramping absurdity, starting small and then slowly descending into full-scale madness.
The visuals here are more interesting than Operator's, mostly because it needs to be. In order for us to really get this idea of the growing frustration and also a similarly increasing absurdity, then this needs to be reflected in the visuals. Shots are deeply claustrophobic, full of close-ups, reflecting not only the enclosed area of the car, but also potentially his mental state, growing frustrated and anxious. I think if you look deeper at the film beyond its simple concepts, I think there's a strong interpretation to be found that the fly represents that nagging guilt at the situation he's in, the feeling that he's doing something morally wrong. Williams' increasing usage of shots in the mirror help reflect that, close-ups on the mirror seem to show some form of introspective self, he's clearly angry and frustrated, trying to harm innocent life. Isn't this the same as the heist that takes the background for the film? Innocent lives being harmed in the name of built-up anger or greed. The first shots of the protagonist here shows him nervously tapping his finger on the steering wheel and his expression again shows one of discomfort. This performance, delivered with the appropriate amount of slapstick as the concept deserves by Jack Doolan, suggests a sense of guilt or nervousness running through him. Maybe this isn't the case though. Maybe the film is simply a comedic absurdist descent into frenzy. Well, if this is true, it's done very well, with the mis-en-scene of the car being increasingly more damaged doing really well to signify to the spectator how far it will go. There's a great moment that is slightly shocking when he's trying to swat the fly and inadvertently skews his lip with the matchstick. The use of blood here does add some shock value to the whole scenario and again goes along with the whole depravity of the situation. Apart from shock though, this short film is really quite funny. One of the first laughs in the film, and a fabulous tone setter for the film as a whole, is the title card, which shows after he first initially thinks he's got rid of the fly. The score takes on this comically grandiose and epic tone and the title flashes. Again, this reminds me of and is again surely influenced by Gaspar Noè's trademark introductions, similarly flashing, and with similarly over-the-top and eccentric scores which come to proceed the depravity to come. While the shock value here is far less than Noè's films, it's still there, setting the spectator up for this descent into insanity. The sound apart from this remains mostly diegetic right up until the credits music, with the police sirens signalling oncoming justice and the screams in pain (also marked by a rather comedic cutaway) help signify obvious emotions of the protagonist to the spectator. The film is also edited together to help continue the building action, fast-paced in its style, consistently engaging the spectator to the unfolding action. Narratively, the film is relatively simple. Applying something like Todorov to this works actually quite well, with a simple conflict taking place, and while the conflict is resolved by him and the others getting arrested, it fits with this theory relatively comfortably, also having a very clear equilibrium and new equilibrium present. The characters are a little more difficult to define: the hero is arguably the man in the car, yet we know he is partially responsible for the suffering of others in the bank, so in that scenario, does the fly then in some ways become our hero, leading to the eventual arrest and justice against the antagonist? This is where Propp slightly fails, but as a spectator, we are clearly positioned to be laughing at the protagonist rather than sympathising. This is helped by the occasional cutaway to a long shot of a door which features some diegetic screaming from behind it. It suggests other people are getting hurt, so it's okay to laugh at this getaway driver's frustration. The joys and pleasures of this text come in the spectator's happiness at seeing someone get what they deserve and the resolution reflects this fact. The Fly is again, like Operator, a very simple concept but like Operator, it develops this concept really well, creating a suitably absurd premise that develops itself quite nicely, in the same way that Operator develops tension. However, unlike Operator, we are heavily positioned to want our protagonist to fail, rather than succeed than in Bartleet's film, as well as the strongly different tone presented here. I would say that both films are extremely successful at what they set out to do: The Fly at creating a portrayal of growing frustration and Operator, a realist representation of a career that is clearly very interesting. Again, like in Operator, a strong performance does drive the film and that is clearly so important, but I think this film showed that with some good directorial choices like Williams provides here, you can make a concept seem far more deep and developed than it actually is. I found Operator to be an extremely powerful short film, compacting immense emotion and tension into such a simple concept and short amount of time. The film's central narrative revolves around an emergency services operator as they try and guide a woman, with a young child, who is trapped in her burning home. We aren't shown the action taking place, just the operator's perspective as she attempts to save both their lives through the instructions she gives. Therefore, this film draws our attention to audio as a narrative device far more than the visuals.
Dialogue plays a crucial part in creating the tension, particularly in the increasingly frantic distress shown by the caller on the other side: although we are unable to see the fire, we can picture it getting worse due the ramping volume and intensity of the caller's voice. The sounds we hear are almost exclusively diegetic, with the only non-diegetic sounds coming with the melancholic music that plays over the credits and a noise that comes in when the operator believes the call has been disconnected (it could be static, and therefore diegetic. It's slightly unclear what the noise is. Either way, the noise works really well to increase the tension at that set moment). We are immersed into the operator's life through the sound and the cinematography helps to keep our attention in the same place as the operator's. It is low-key, keeping on a medium close-up of the operator: if our gaze is anywhere on the visuals, it will be on her reactions to the call, her calmness in the face of the distress and panic shown by the caller. Bartleet seems aware, however, that our main attention really needs to be on the call so keeps editing extremely minimal, it allows us to tune out of looking at the visuals for a moment and just listen to the call, in both the panic and the calm that takes place throughout. Narratively, the film is also interesting. Bartleet introduces the environment to us with one long, unbroken shot that transitions around various other operators: the dialogue suggest that some of the other calls are far more trivial, although one seems to be of a disappearance. I really liked this opening to the film: Bartleet seems so fixated on the psychological strain and ideas around this career, and part of this comes from what kind of call you'll get when you pick up the phone. Will you get a brutal, gory murder call with someone who is clearly in grief and shock? Or will you simply just get a call from someone locked outside their house? Either way, Barleet instantly captures the job at its heart: that unexpected nature of picking up the phone. What I also find quite interesting about how Bartleet drives our intense reaction to the film is that in terms of characterisation, we are given very little to work with, yet we are instantly compelled and drawn to the humanity present here. One theory that works relatively well here is Levi-Strauss and I think this conflict between life and death that runs directly through this film: while we are never really directly confronted with it as a spectator, it's just the general concept of someone on the phone in a life or death situation that engages us and drives us through it: our internal hope for humanity to prevail - this connection with someone guiding someone else over the phone, helping them and their young child to avoid death. It becomes impossible not to care about the situation unfolding, as there is that clear threat of death being communicated through the sound and visuals in the narrative. What I did really love about this film is the way it ends though: there's that brief period of silence before the operator picks up yet another phone call. The silence is really fantastic, all the tension that has built up in the spectator rushes out so perfectly. I've always really liked the sudden use of silence, particularly after a scene of such frenzy, and I think it works perfectly here. The ending suggests an almost cyclical narrative structure even, she will pick up yet another phone call, and maybe save another life, or perhaps not, perhaps it will be something different, more trivial, or it will be a similar situation, but this time she'll fail. Like what the operator must be going through, similar questions rush through the spectator's head towards the end of the film, the credit's music driving that thought home. Bartleet says that the film was inspired by a real emergency call she heard, and the ideas around this career must have really grabbed her and I think the dynamics of that job are portrayed really interested here. It's almost as if the job encourages a level of disconnect from humanity, yet by being as spectators shoved into this phone call, we are forced to listen to our most human instincts: the protection and preservation of life. I think Bartleet's film works so successfully partially due to the decision to make cinematography and mis-en-scene far less important in the film but also due to the absolutely fantastic performance from Kate Dickie, who plays the operator in the film. With a weaker actor, this wouldn't have worked, and I think she makes the concept really come alive in a way that it might not have before. The only issue when considering these ideas when making my film is that I too will need to find a good performance to be able to fully realise a concept that I have. As good as a concept may be, if the acting is not up to scratch, it's hard to fully sell the narrative to the spectator. Thankfully in this film, the performances are superb, really engaging the spectator into the potential trauma and stress of this job. Bartleet does a really phenomenal job of representing this idea with such a simple concept and technique. |
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