miracle of st anna analysis

Miracle of St Anna

This film was an American-Italian war film, the genre is a historical fiction and the themes that ran throughout this film were violence, war, family, betrayal, unloyalty, sacrifice, reality, friendship and love. This film was made in 2008 and directed by Spike Lee, also adapted by the 2003 novel by James McBride. The location of this film was set in Italy mainly and in the United States.  The production companies of this film are Touchstone Pictures, 40 Acres and a Mule Film works and RAI Cinema, and were distributed Walt Disney Studios and Motion Pictures. The budget of this film was $45 million and box office was 19.4 million- this was a box office disappointment, but gained a further $10.1 million from DVD sales.

Before the film even starts, repetitive symbols of the cross is shown, signifying already Christian values are going to be shown throughout this film.  The first scene shows a (almost) retired black man named Hector sitting at his post office, doing his job, until he analyses and recognizes one of his costumers, who he immediately shoots in the chest. Already, this grabs the audience’s attention making them question why Hector would do that. The scene ends when the gun is left in the hat (after being fired) with blood splattered over it; this suggests a cyclical structure, which will tie this scene together towards the end of the film. however, before the scene of ‘gun in hat’ shown, Hector pulls down his shutter and a close of the sign of it saying ‘closed’ is shown to emphasise it was done for a purpose and that he does care if he was arrested. However, to the audience it makes them question why he would do that so casually.

He’s immediately arrested and investigators go to his house, finding the ‘head of Primavera’ stressed to be the eldest statue worth millions, his service medal of the cross (military award) and a purple heart (awarded to those wounded/killed while serving); suggesting a military/ war story behind it, already giving the audience an insight of who Hector is, but doesn’t completely make sense yet. The detective questioned him and said ‘with all that you was awarded with, what are you doing with this statue and why would you kill this man?’ I believe is some respects the detective represents the audience, because he has no idea as well as the audience, as to why he would do that? All the questions asked, is answered in Hector’s head, as flashbacks, giving the audience a fair view of the two sides of the story. A sudden flashback happens where Hector tells his story, at every scene it is captioned with ‘Rome, Italy’ or a date (1964) , making the audience feel we are going forward into Hector’s flashback with him, making us feel like we’re in the scene with him, which is created purely by mis-en-scene using a different location, time-zone and change in lighting. But, before he enters his flashback, a man threw out his newspaper, and landed on a middle aged Italian man’s table (rather wealthy looking), he stands as he picks up the newspaper, of the reported story of Hector and the statue, a close up shot of the man dropping his tea to the floor dramatically; again makes the audience question another man’s relevance to this story and how he is linked to Hector. The scene of him ends, when he walks away shocked. An excellent scene of this man stepping into a puddle, and change of scene where a militant boot steps out of a puddle; indicating to the audience a change in the time zone.

 Racism was another key theme shown as the above authority of the black soldiers, was a white man, who often looked down at them, shown again by the microelement, performance. A brilliant scene indicated racism was when the soldiers wanted to eat in a café with other white Americans, but the owner still treated the blacks inhumanely by telling them to sit at the back, away from the whites. Close up shots of the all the soldiers face showed their emotions of how they was upset, disappointed and sad over this approach. However, they repeat their action the next day; they came to the café with an aggressive, violent and hostile approach towards the owner, the owner was intimidated, scared, but the soldiers showed no mercy, it was shown clearly through their performance that their change of behaviour had to be done.

The flashback shows Black American soldier walking across the river shooting the German vice versa, majority of the Black soldiers was shot and killed, some made it through, who are known as the several protagonists in this film.  These soldiers show the theme of brotherhood throughout the film and stuck together throughout this war. One of the soldiers called Sam shows a sense of humour, which makes the film very humorous in the same way of showing social realism- this is presented through the microelement, performance. Again, analysing the soldiers, Sam is very caring and warm hearted, as he rescues an Italian little boy called Angelo, almost becoming a father figure to this child.  Sam didn’t want to let this child go none of the soldiers understood why, but this child showed/connote hope, his vulnerability and young age can symbolise hope/anticipation to the soldiers.  Angelo plays a massive role to the film as we later discover that the man who dropped his teacup (devastated at the news report) was actually Angelo (grown up) who also bailed out Hector.

The story ties together at this point. A beautiful panoramic scene is shown of the view of the beach and the house by; the bright light connoted their bright future, again the hope being displayed by Angelo through his youth and even when he matured to a middle aged man.  This scene did emotionally grab the audience’s attention, making the audience more sympathetic towards Hector and his terrible war experience. The themes of love, friendship and family are shown through Hector and Angelo.  Death is also another key theme shown by all the other soldiers shot one by one, leaving Hector to be the last to die, but he didn’t get killed; instead the German Soldier handed over the pistol to Hector. A close up shot of the pistol was shown, making the audience aware that it was the very same pistol used to kill Italian partisans at the beginning on the film, but the flashback showed and made the audience learn that the man that was killed was a betrayer, and was technically the reason why everyone died (like the innocent Italian family who helped the soldiers by hiding them in their house, the soldiers, etc.)