The Selfish Giant (2013)

The selfish giant (2013) is a british drama and the themes that run throughout this film are brotherhood, friendship, poverty, suffering and death. This film very emotional and connects to a wide audience range of 16 upwards due to the vulgar language used.  This film was directed by Clip Barnard and also written by him, cinematography by Mike Eley and distributed by IFC Films and Pigment movie pictures. The running film was 91 minutes and the box office of this was $943,209. This film was set is Bradford, northern England and the male protagonist in this film is Arbor, a young helpless boy with a hyperactivity disorder, which gets him into more trouble unintentionally. This film was screened on the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and won the European cinemas award and also nominated for the 2013 Lux Prize. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 5/5 stars.

The first scene shows the two boys, Arbor and Swifty, holding hands under the bed after Arbor having a hyperactivity attack; this indicates already to the audience that they’re showing a sense of brotherhood, love and highlights that they’re strong friends- that this scene is the key meaning to the film. Furthermore, the audience discover that they are best  friends and that when they are together they feel like they are escaping the reality of poverty they live in, making it a fun world to live in for them. This theme of friendship is emphasised throughout the film and is shown by Arbor and Swifty.

Moreover, there are longshots of scenery where cows are walking around; this is done throughout the film, but having different changes to it. The use of the cows could be used to symbolise the boys and that they’re no different to animals due to their class (working class). Mis-en-secne is used to present what class the boys are from. This is shown by the jogging bottoms and same dirty top worn every day, this is also shown by wear they are sleeping, all together in the living room. Furthermore, when the son sells metal and tries to give the £20 to his Mother, indicates that they’re in poverty and that the Mother is suffering for her own son to give her money. When the Mother repeatedly asks Arbor where he got the money from, he has a hyperactivity attack and the Mother can’t control him, this suggests that the Mother is helpless- an indication that the film is based on social realism.  Swift also has a struggling big family with many younger siblings, and the fact that he goes to sleep at Arbor’s house shows that it is his form of escapism from all the responsibilities he has. The microfeature emphasised in this scene was performance, engaging with the audience and making it clear what their financial status is by what they presented through them to the audience.

The title name ‘Selfish Giant’ is connoted through the adults. It is shown throughout the film that the adults are portrayed as the ‘selfish giant’ as the teachers was really harsh to Arbor, even with his hyperactivity condition; he was still treated like an average student. Even the man that owned the scrap yard was making the young boys do his dirty work for him, making them take part in illegal activity.

Jonah (2013) Analysis

Jonah the whale (2013) is a social realistic film and the themes that run throughout this film are regret, friendship, greed, poverty and mistrust. This film was directed by Kibwe Taveres, written by Jack Thorne and starred Daniel Kaluuya, Malchi Kirby and Louis Mahooney and is a short film; the duration of this film is 17mins long. The production companies that distributed this film was the BFI Film Fund and Factory Fifteen and this film was located in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Mbwana and Juma are best friends that live in a rural village and it this scene the audience disovers the theme of friendship, brotherhood and love. The audience also discovers that they both have big ambitions and dreams. Their dreams hit reality when they capture a picture of huge fish, which gets advertised all over their village, making it a hotspot for tourist attractions. The themes that run throughout this scene are success, popularity and fame. However,  after getting everything he wanted, his dreams aren’t what he dreamed for anymore and when he meets the fish again, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, the whale ate him. The themes that throughout this scenes are regret, death and unhappiness.

The scene where Juma leaves Mbwana, the close up shot of his face, zooming into the eye indicates a flash forward within his eye. This was an indication that time was moving forwards into the future. The camera shot zooms back out the eye and shows Mbwana much older, again this shot was excellent as it gave a clear indication to the audience was time zone they are in.  Furthermore, his older appearance connotes that he is closer to death.  Also, the scene after shows a longshot of what their village looks like; vibrant, full of colours and connoted happiness and enjoyment and then a scene of a panoramic display of what the buildings now look like. The buildings are old, chipped and have half ripped posters; showing the audience a contrast of what the village looks like then and now. This highlights how Mbwana selfish fame has ruined his village.

Furthermore, the scene at the bus stop where everyone went on and left him behind suggests his neglect and how he isn’t importance anymore. This highlights to the audience where fame is short term happiness and doesn’t last forever and now Mbwana is suffering on his own. The next scene is view of how the beach and sea are polluted, which suggests how Mbwana has caused this and his greed has made his village result to this. The use of the cinematography in this film was a major feature to this film as it captures the audience’s attention throughout the film with its flashy images. And the use of diagetic and non-diegetic sound was used throughout the film building up suspense when they captured the picture of the fish and when Mbwana was in the sea catching the fish, highlighting that they’re importance key scenes to this film.

Weekly Film Review: Friend Request

‘Friend Request’ is a supernatural, psychological horror film and the themes that run through this film are death, violence, isolation, friendship and envy. This was directed by Simon Verhoeven, cinematography by Jo Heim and edited by Denis Bachter. The production companies of this film are Wiedemann& Berg film, Seven Pictures Film and distributed by Warner Bros. This film was released on the 20^th April 2016. It was an English film, but was made in Germany; hence the confusion of different names as it is called ‘unfriend’ in Germany; however causes confusion as there is another film called ‘unfriended’. The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. Though the film was produced by German director Simon Verhoeven and German production companies, the largely English-speaking cast required the film to be shot in English. Filming ended in March 2014.  The box office of this film was $5.9 million.

In the first scene, the ‘warner bro’ credit scene was shown not how it originally is shown, this scene was shown in a horror themed, showing several glitches when the Warner Bro’s logo was shown, indicating that this film has something to do with a computer screen.  This also immediately shows that this film is a horror film too. The sound had several beats and went silent; this was a way of building up tension, already gathering the audience’s attention.

In the first few minutes, the first scene in the film is a wide shot of an institute, which indicates an idea that this story revolves around teenagers. Again, the scene after, there is a wide shot of the lecture room, which indicates that this film is based around teenagers, giving the idea that this will attract a youthful audience. The next scene is of the people sitting down and on the front bench is of two girls, which suggests that they are important roles to the film; foreshadowing that there is a female protagonist. The next scene is of a close up shot of the female’s facial expression; her face begins to tremble when she finds out that ‘Marina’ is dead. This shows the audience that she has some sort of link to the death and that this film evolves around this storyline. Furthermore, the scene showing her face depicts that she is our female protagonist.

The screen goes completely blank and shows a longshot of a female’s bedroom and says ‘two weeks earlier’ which highlights that the previous scene was a flashback. In addition, the audience see a lot of scenes of Facebook, which can make the audience feel like they are watching it from the screen in the shoes of the girl. All the characters are introduced by their Facebook profiles, the audience learn that the protagonist’s name is Laura. This film empathises the colour black, which connotes death, lifelessness, and evil. 

The meaning of this film is for people to watch who they have as their friends online and to be wise about it. Many people have this social network known as ‘Facebook’ which attracts a wide audience range of all ages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDNgs0dgjj4

Weekly Film Review: Me La Debes

‘A family of three, plus the maid and daughter's boyfriend look pretty normal on the outside. But in actuality, they are all having affairs with each other. The boyfriend is sleeping with the mother and daughter, and the father is sleeping with the maid. Do they all know about each other's affairs?’

‘You owe me one’ (me la debes) is a Spanish film made in 2002 and depicts the genre of comedy and drama. The duration of this film is 12 mins and throughout this short film, the themes are love, lust, family, status, sex and deception. This was written by Carlos Cuaron, cinematography by Alexis Zabe and edited by Sebastian Garza. This film contains a sex farce, which is a light comedy; is centred on sexual pairings of characters as they move through doubtful plots throughout the film.

In the opening scene, the scene focuses on the portrait of the family that consists of the Father, Mother and Daughter, which suggests that they are a patriarchal family where the Father holds great dominance over his family. This also shows whose present and introduced in the film; or could suggest who’s most important in the film. Furthermore, the frame of the picture was gold and they had an old rotary dial, which suggests they’re traditional and the gold can emphasise their wealth, suggesting that they’re a middle class family.   A scene after that, it gives a long shot view of the whole desk and the scenery around it, above the desk is a statue of Jesus, which can symbolise that they’re religious as well. This already gives the audience an idea of what the characters are like just by these two scenes.

This is also displayed by sound, in the beginning scene while showing the portrait, classical music was shown throughout this scene, which also highlights that they’re religious, have traditional values and that they have class (stereotypically).  Also, in the opening scene the use of the barking dog, can suggest its importance later in the film. The barking dog was used throughout the film and could highlight a way of this sound is used to build up tension. Furthermore, the sound of the television, barking dog and classical music got louder and louder, suggesting that it was getting louder until she reached her climax. this film contained a lot of diegetic and non-diegetic sound as a lot of sound was coming from the characters, television, barking dog, but also from the classical music. 

Weekly Film Analysis: Mean Girls

Mean Girls' is a 2004 film directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey and Rosalind Wiseman. Due to being directed by Mark Waters; this is then promoted by the use of Lindsay Lohan, a famous comedic actress at the time. In addition to Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey also indicates the comedic genre, as being well known from Saturday Night Live.

Through use of a more famous cast, audiences whom are fans of these actors will immediately be attracted to this film. The films budget was an estimated $17,000,000 and upon release it grossed $129,042,871 worldwide, the budget immediately reflective of the films 'Hollywood' release, this big budget is again suggested through the use of a popular and in demand actress of the time, 'Lindsay Lohan'. 

Within the scene, audiences are presented with four different environments which illustrate each characters personality. All four characters are seen wearing stereotypically girly clothing, focusing on pastel colour such as blues, pinks and purples. The clothing is seen featuring lace and jewelled studding immediately, when filled with these colours, indicating that these characters represent an extremely girly and feminine group of girls. The unnatural appearance of their clothing almost indicates that the characters themselves are extremely unnatural.  The clothing is particularly important to attracting the younger audience, because it is idealistic and it makes the audience aspire to own the same clothes.

During the scene there is use of a small use of sound following a television advertisement which one of the characters is seen briefly watching. Through this small use of sound in the background, it almost adds a more realistic effect to the scene, presenting audiences with sound they can recognise. In addition to this, the use of background 'noise' also allows audiences to see how the character of 'Regina' is distracted from the phone conversation and almost unbiased. Although it is diegetic, music is heard as the plot thickens within the scene. This use of music almost furthers the manipulative nature of the scene and somewhat reels audiences in, making them want to see what is to happen next. The music somewhat resembles the sound of a ticking clock, making audiences almost impatient to know what is going to happen within the scene, it also acts at speeding the pace of the scene itself.

Film Proposal

https://prezi.com/_kojaconakxs/9pm/

Snatch Film Review (2000)

“Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.”

Snatch is a British comedy released in 23^rd August 2000 and directed by Guy Ritchie and the themes that run throughout the film are violence, revenge, greed, money, authority, superiority, power and humour. The film is set and based in London and contains different stories between the characters, but all link to one towards the end of the film. Starring in this film was Benicio del Toro, Dennis Farina, Alan Ford, Jason Flemyng, Brad Pitt. The film budget of this film was $10 million and box office was $83.6 million.

The cinematography was a major feature that made the film outstanding, engaging and appealing to the audience and this was done by Time Maurice-Jones. Another feature this film has is an ensemble cast and that means a made up of cast member in which the actors have an equal amount of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This is what made the film unique and enjoyable as it tied the film together. I think the target audience of this film was for ages 18-26 as it is rated for 18, therefore not appropriate to a teenage audience as there is bad language and violence.

Focusing on cinematography, there was a lot close up shots, which is effective to an audience as they was eye grabbing and overwhelming in a sense to see. Watching the film, I discovered that this film had a cyclical structure and the diamond item causing this cycle. At the beginning of the film, the characters have their own caption as their personal introduction, which helped the audience understand who’s who. Also, focusing on the scene of the two gangsters robbing a man, there was the ‘CCTV footage’ camera angle used to film this scene, made it more realistic and as if we were watching the footage with the gangsters. Furthermore, mis-en-scene was used highly as a feature to this film; using props like a gun made the film more effective and empathised the theme of violence throughout the film. Also the use of the diamond showed the audience the importance of it and that it was ‘every man for themselves’ for it. 

Weekly Film Review: Ouija 2 (2016)

Ouija 2 is a supernatural horror film and the themes that run throughout this film are family, love, conflict, sacrifices and death.  The film's plot focuses on a Mother (who lost her husband and therefore left to look after her two children) daughters, she buys an Ouija board as part of their scamming business, but unknowingly unleash a spirit, which later possesses the body of her youngest daughter. The film was released on October 21st, 2016 by Universal Studios, grossing over $64 million, and directed by Mike Flanagan, produced by Michael Bay, Bradley Fuller, etc.

This film starred Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson. The daughter is known as the protagonist as she is being stopped from reaching her family due to the antagonist (the spirit) which is trying to take over her body.
The scene that caught my eye was when the dolly's mouth mysteriously got sewed together, the ghost of the father did it, and the daughter saw, but nobody believed her. Towards the end of the film, the only way to stop the spirit from taking over the whole family's lives, was by sewing the mouth of the spirit to stop it from emerging to other bodies. The scene of the dolly tied the story together and made it more eye opening to the audience - and also a lot more sense.

Mis- en- scene was used highly throughout the film, as the film was based on the 'origins of evil', so the characters was dressed very old fashioned, almost traditional and the house settings looked very traditional as well, which made the audience feel as if it was set back in the 1960s (and by research the film was actually to be set in 1967). Performance as well played a massive impact on the genre of the horror to this film, to ensure it was really scary and jumpy, to keep the audience's attention and engaged to the story line. The use of the young girl is typically used in every horror film, but could explain why they use children as they're innocent and by possessing them contrasted their behaviour making it more frightening, eerie and creepy.

Angel's Share Analysis

“Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.”

The angels share is a comedy-drama film. It is directed by Ken Loach and written by Paul Laverty, starring Paul Brannigan, who is the protagonist of this film. He shows qualities of being a protagonist as the film shows he’s trying to turn over a new leaf trying to avoid a prison sentence, avoiding the crowd getting him in trouble and starting a life with his family. He takes part in a community service where the group go to a whiskey distillery. The whiskey symbolises hope and is used throughout the film, which later inspired him to get money and start a new leaf with his family. Even through the title, “angel’s share” which means a “share” of whiskey lost due to evaporation during aging in the oak barrels, which is demonstrated through a scene that highlights the title of the film.  This film was based in Scotland and was released in 2012. Production companies that ran this film were Sixteen Films, Wild Bunch and Why Not Productions and distributed by Entertainment One. It was financially backed by the BFI and France 2 cinema.