Weekly Film Review: Endless Love

What is my film about?

David has had a crush on Jade since the first time he saw her in the tenth grade. With high school coming to an end, David has never spoken to her until her family pulls up to The Inn, where David works as a valet. She and David fall madly in love, a love that only grows stronger as parents try to tear them apart. David knows Jade's past, but as his secrets are slowly revealed, Jade's trust is tested and leaves them wondering if they are truly meant to be together.

Location and production of film:

Endless Love starring Alex Pettyfer was filmed in Georgia. Universal has started production in Georgia on a remake of the 1981 film Endless Love which starred Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt. This time around, Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde are set to star in the movie which will open on Valentine's Day 2014

Genre and theme:

This is a romantic film and the themes that run through this film are

• ·         Family
• ·         Love
• ·         Conflict
• ·         Hate
• ·         Class
• ·         Money
• ·         Greed
• ·         Greif
• ·         Loss

Scene:

*Father gets stuck in house set on fire, boyfriend goes into save the Father*

The scene takes place in the room where the fire grows heavily and heavily. The micro feature I spotted was performance as the Father lost a previous child; he wanted to take his belongings before he left the room, but he wanted to take almost everything, which was slowing him down from escaping the fire that broke out in the room he was in. The boyfriend comes in and tries to drag the father out, but he becomes unconscious. The father drops his son’s belongings and picked up the boyfriend. This indicates that the father dropped the son’s belongings, realising that grieving  was keeping in the past, neglecting his daughter’s happiness with the boy she’s with (because he doesn’t like him).

My brother the devil analysis

My brother the devil is a film written by Sally El Hosaini, who is a female director that won the best European film and Grand Jury award at the BFI London Film Festival in 2012 (the time of the film made). It is a British film, the genre of this film is drama and this is a social realism urban story. The themes that run through this film are family, love, violence, conflict, innocence, religion, revenge and anger. The contrasts of the themes innocence and guilt are portrayed by both the brothers, Mo and Rash, throughout the film.

In the opening scene before the film start it shows pictures of real life men, which suggests that this film is based on a real story. Then the film starts and the first scene shows Rash boxing, which suggests his superiority, leadership qualities and that he is strong. It also shows Mo, the youngest brother, signing his school shirts, which presents his vulnerability, that he is young, and has no acknowledgment of the world, or what is up-coming in the film. After this the images are shown again and one by is pictured with what look like drugs which give us an insight to what these boys lives may be like.

The main scene is focused my review on was when the gangs meet up and attempt to attack each other. Demon, the gang leader of the rival gang shows his authority when the camera focuses on him in this scene. His dog foreshadows the violence of this scene.  The absence of light presents the darkness, gloomy and dangerous atmosphere that is about to happen and the sound is diegetic; all dialogue, but when the dog got stabbed there was also an absence of sound, suggesting this dog was meant to die. Demon screams out and without hesitation stabs, Rash’s best friend, and lies dead on the floor. This scene is powerful as it indicates the death of the gang member and rival dog are the same, that these boys in the gangs are inhumane, treated like dogs and have no life of their own. Rash was the last one to stay and watch his best friend on the floor, eventually ran away, which suggests when he ran was when he hit reality.

When Rash ran away, there was heavy sounds that highlighted his built up feelings of the death of his best friend, including heavy breathing, footsteps and police sirens, including the trains above him as he was under the bridge. The sounds got louder and louder each time and eventually went silent, which connotes that all that sound was from inside of Rash’s head.

Propps and Todoron: Who are they? And what are their theories?

Todorov’s narrative theory basically states that most story’s or plots follow the same pattern and that there are 5 steps in this:

1. Equilibrium- where the story displays a happy start, where majority characters and everything is as it should be
2. Disruption- feature a problem or something that will disrupt the happiness
3. Realisation- part of the plot where everyone realises that there is a problem and that it is chaos
4. Restored order- part of the plot when the characters attempt to repair the damage and restore the problem
5. Equilibrium again- where the problem is resolved and normality can resume again

Todorov’s and Propps theories apply to most films and stories.

Propps narrative structure:

1. Preparation- community ordered state of being
2. Complication- villain harms member of hero’s family
3. Transference- hero given magical gift or hero goes to fulfil his quest
4. Struggle- between hero and villain                         
5. Return- hero escapes or task set for hero or hero  fulfils the task             
6. Recognition- hero is rewarded

Weekly Film Review: The girl on the train

A film I can relate this to would be ‘Gone girl’ as the story plot is the same, but ‘the girl on the train’ had a few extra differences. The director of this film is Tate Taylor. The production line of this film was DreamWorks Pictures and they got the film rights from Paula Hawkins; who wrote the novel of ‘the girl on the train’ and Tate Taylor was hired to direct this play.

As known of the title, the opening starts off with the girl getting on the train. She starts talking, which shows the audience it’s a narrative story. As the film goes on we come to realise the film is narrated from three different women, first Rachel, then Anna and lastly Megan.  The cinematography presents the names of the girls before we actually see them, which signifies to the audience who they are and that they play a main role in the film. I believe there are three protagonists as you get through the movie realising they’re all victims and emotionally/physically abused by the man who once at one point loved him (Tom).  He had an affair with three individuals, which is explained how they are linked towards the end of the film. Every film has 7 plots, and this film is based on man against man (antagonist vs protagonists), which indicates that Tom is the antagonist and Megan, Rachel and Anna are the protagonists. ‘The girl on the train’ is basically a narrative story and the genre is Thriller. The themes that run along this whole film are love, lust, vulnerability and fear. 

The train plays a significance to the film as I predict the train connotes Rachel’s journey towards her ex-husband, she expresses it as her form of comfort watching her ex-husbands new family as something she still desires. This makes the audience aware that she still grieves for her husband, almost thinking that she is a threat to his new family, but by the micro feature of performance the audience discovers that she is an alcoholic so the audience become stuck to the idea that she is threatening. Later in the film, the performance demonstrated by Tom shows us he mentally and physically abusive to Anna (who he killed), Rachel (in the past and left her) and his new wife. Towards the end of the play, Rachel (out of defence) kills Tom, as she turns we hear the sound of the train railing past, this micro feature is known as an absence of light, but presence of sound. Then the film shows the train going past her whilst Tom lies dead on floor; this signifies that she was trapped on the train all this time and now that he has died, she has gained her freedom.

Shot types

Shot types and Sizes

Medium shots-

Medium shot shows the character from the head to the waist. A medium shot will show some background; it shows the body language of the characters. Medium shots are meant to show us what the characters are doing and how they feel.

Extreme close up-

The extreme close up shot focuses on a part of the face usually the eyes or the mouth. It is used to convey / show the emotion of the character to the audience. Example if the story focuses on the eyes of a crying person you could tell the character is obviously sad. Extreme close up shots are often used at key points in the story.

Long shot-

Long shots show full body of the character unlike the medium shot. This also shows the location of the characters and shows the relationship between the characters. Long shots are often used as a first shot at the start of a particular sequence.

High angle shots-

In a high angle shot the camera is positioned above the character or the place. This makes the character look vulnerable. High angle shot is meant to make the audience side with the characters in shot.

Low angle shot-

Unlike the high angle shot the low angle shot is the opposite the camera is placed below. Low angle shot makes characters and object look important, big, and powerful.

Pan shot-

Pan is short for panoramic. The camera moves in an arc from a fixed point. We all have this in our phones and panoramic shots are used to mainly to show the view or the landscape of a place.

7 plots

the seven plots

Man against man-
two characters against each other; the antagonist stops protagonist reaching the goal. e.g. spiderman vs villain.
man against nature-
protagonist has to overcome natural environment e.g. life of Pi and 127 hours
man against self-
protagonist has conflict with himself e.g. shutter island, when protagonist has mental issues and has to deal with it on his own
man against god-
conflict between protagonist and omniscient e.g. Bruce Almighty
man against society-
protagonist has arguments with institutions, traditions and laws of their culture e.g. Malcom X
man caught in the middle-
protagonist finds themselves caught in a difficult situation and find an alternative to reach their goal e.g.flypaper
man against technology-
technology is a growing invention, which is seen to be taking control of people and society. e.g transformers

Comparing the film 'wasp' and 'soft'

‘Wasp’ is a film about a single Mother who is struggling to look after her children. She lies about them being her children and leaves them outside a pub when she goes out with her boyfriend. ‘Soft’ is a film about young boy being bullied by a group of boys and they also target the father; towards the end of the film, the son attacked the gang leader, which ended the attack.

Both films ‘wasp’ and ‘soft’ share similarities. Firstly, they are both short films and both share the genre of Drama. Also, both films use real life issues that are happening in people’s day to day life and our current society. Furthermore, they both target the same age audience of 15-18 years old; due to bad language and violence-which only a mature audience could see. Moreover, the use of the children switching roles with their parents shows the audience how this does happen in real life issues – the boy protected his father in ‘soft’ and the eldest daughter had to look after her siblings in ‘wasp’.

However, ‘wasp’ and ‘soft’ share differences too. The endings of both films were different, ‘wasp’ ended well as the mother had support from the boyfriend who accepted her children, whereas ‘soft’ made the boy realize what a coward his father is. ‘Wasp’ connotes the theme of poverty, love and deceit and ‘soft’ connotes of vulnerability, violence and revenge. Furthermore, both films use different objects to foreshadow the plot; ‘soft’ uses the bat left in the passage way of the door to foreshadow is main use towards the end of the film and ‘wasp’ uses an actual wasp, which features in the kitchen watching over the mother and her lifestyle, which again appeared when the baby almost swallowed it- the use of the wasp made her realize and snap out of the lie she was trying to live. 

Weekly Film Analysis: Attack the Block

Attack the Block follows an unlucky young woman and a gang of tough inner-city kids who make an unlikely alliance to try to defend their turf against an invasion of savage alien creatures, turning a South London apartment complex into a war-zone. Attack the block is an interesting film to analyse as there are a merge of contrasting genres within this film. Furthermore, there are many micro features that I have discovered in ‘Attack the Block’.

Mis-en-scene is shown througH what the actors/actresses are wearing; the gang are wearing hoodies, tracksuits and caps, which portrays and stereotypes south London teenage boys living in urban areas that take part in gang violence. Also the contrasting outfit of what the woman being attacked wore, (jacket, hat, purse and jeans) was a casual formal wear of clothes presents her innocence and the use of the wallet, shows the audience that she is a nurse, which is a way of introducing and giving an impression to the characters in the film. Also, the creature was a form of prop as  post-production added the unearthly qualities such as the spiky fur which doesn't reflect any light, the claws, the rows of bio luminescent jaws, and even some of their movement. Moreover, I believe the actors give the audience range age of 15-25 years old, due to the actors being on an age range of this and the contrast of genres keeps the younger and older audience interested. Light is shown through majority of the scenes shown on the ‘blocks’ around midnight, presenting a sci-fi and gloomy atmosphere connoting the theme of here, violence and death. Also, sound is shown through non-diegetic sound, but a lot of songs were played throughout the film, and at key scenes there was diegetic sound taken place to give more of an effect of the plot.

Furthermore, the use of the cinematography was done by Tom Townend who focused his effects on the alienated creature by giving it unique qualities which was shown through the camera angle. There was many close up at the opening scene and shots of the main character, Moses, which gave the audience an indication that the film was based around him and his story. Lastly, their performance played a massive role to the film. The director used different ages and ethnicity to show the reality of south London culture and a sense of social realism. The key themes in Attack the block would be violence, love, conflict, death, bravery, etc. the setting was based in Brixton, which again makes the film more realistic.