Dark City

DARK CITY

On week 7, we watched Dark City in the class, and we learned about the theory of German Expressionism. Dark City is directed by Alex Proyas in the 1998, the film consists of several genres and is categorized as the Postmodernism Film, but the main goal of this essay is to talk about the German Expressionism approach towards the film.

German Expressionism refers to a creative movements which was beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. It was influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. The theme of the movement of German Expressionism are often contain of self-analysis, madness and primitive, sexual savagery. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Europe culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture, as well as film. It also spread into cinema in terms of narrative, set and Mise‐en‐scene. It is most apparent in set design and chiaroscuro lighting in order word low key lighting. The style of German Expressionism includes oblique camera angle, distorted bodies and shapes, gothic style in looking and framing, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows, and the content is usually about surreal and gothic, unnatural acts or realities. All these style of German Expressionism is to deliver the sense of fear, anxiety and mystery to the audience which influenced a lot of horror movie. The theme of revolt is found through the character Dr. Schreber when he rival against The Strangers by re-imprinted John’s memory in order to reset the world. He believes that with John Murdoch’s abilities in tuning can make his revolution a success. Self-analysis is when the character trying to find or figure it out who he or she really is by finding details and information about it. Besides Dark City, another best example for German Expressionism on film is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Vampyr.

The story started in a scene where the main character, John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, and found himself could not recall or remember any memories. Soon, he realized that he was wanted for the suspect of murder crime. As he escape from a group of bald and distorted body proportion people who are called “The Strangers”. Murdoch is the only human that wakes up during the Tuning, because he has the power of tuning. The city was in the blend of reality and took ever by The Strangers to study human’s personality and mentality. They believed the outcome of experiment will help them to resolve the extinction crisis of their species. With the help of Dr. Schreber, Murdoch manages to jigsaws together puzzle of his past memories of his childhood, his love for Emma, and key of murders. At the end, he rival against The Strangers and reform the world to brightness.

There are some German Expressionism elements that we can found in this film. The chiaroscuro lighting is one of the important element in this film. So that it can create the mood of thrilling to the audience. In the film, the Strangers always appeal in dark and silhouette lighting, it kind of give the audience the feel of horrific element of monster. Self-analysis can easily been found in the beginning of the film where John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, found himself naked and unable to recall or remember any memories. He wondered around the hotel, hoping that he could find details or information about himself, then he found out that he was wanted for suspect of murder case, which is why he tested his killing desire by bumping into a prostitute. Dark City also show us the theme of primitive sexual savagery through the series of murder cases. Which is, prostitute was naked and was killed brutally and their bodies were drawn with circular lines, this shows the primitive behavior of The Strangers. Moreover, German Expressionism also talked about the distorted body proportion. The character has been set in different pattern of physical body movements and face movements to highlight the style of character. For example, Dr. Schreber walks with crippling leg and the weird movement of strangers to show the difference between them and from the human.

In conclusion, German Expressionism is an innovative film movement and it has inspired a lot of filmmakers. This movie has used the techniques and concept of the film movement, and extends it in terms of genre, narration, and Mise-en-scene. The lighting shows the contras of light and dark. Which is why the movement inspired a lot of filmmakers to create horror and noir film. Overall it was a pretty nice film, because I personally like the dark and gloomy style of film, which are shown in the film most of the time and the interesting concept of storyline, where it kind of make us thinks that what if the real world is not real.

Up

UP

On the Hari Raya week, we are supposed to write about any film that we watched in that week. I decided to watch Up as it was one of my favourite movie back when I was still a teenager. Up is a 3D animation film, which the main genre was Comedy-Drama. The film focus on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and a young boy named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is a Wilderness Explorer Member. Then in the journey they met a bird who was named by Russell call Kevin and they also met a loyalty dog named as Dug.

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also a family film, the scene when it shows colorful lighting and background give the audience the mood of happy, but when bad things is going to happen they will show the dark and gray scene to enhance the mood of sad and scare, because it is a drama based genre, when it comes to bad things happen they often show rain scene. For example, the scene where Carl flying his house going to the South Africa, he face through storm and the scene where Carl, Russell, Kevin and Dug was sleeping, they were also facing rains too, it is because they want to enhance the sadness and make the film mood very dramatic.

Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In this film, there are quite a few scenes that falls under the genre of comedy. The first one is Slapstick, slapstick is a sense of humor by performing physical and gestures movement to make the audience laugh, for example the scene where Carl and Russell was stuck under house which the only way they can go up is using the hose, Russell is the only one who can climb since Carl is too old for it, the scene show a close up of Carl waiting Russell to climb up and Russell making a lot of groaning but when Carl looks up Russell was just a little bit on top of Carl. Another humorous scene is when Russell saw a silhouette of a dog, but it is actually a real dog, and he order him to sit and shake then he order the dog to speak and it actually really speaks. In this film we can see numerous of scene of dogs performing humorously to the audience, for example, the dogs really hate squirrels and also really like the tennis ball.

Road film is a genre that is about the main character leaves the home and went on a journey, on the way the character changes, grows, and improves during the journey. In this film we can easily identify that Carl was a stubborn old man after his wife pass away, then he faces these obstacle and in the end Carl looks through Ellie's childhood scrapbook, and is surprised to find that she has filled in the blank pages with photos of their marriage, along with a note thanking him for the "adventure" and encouraging him to go have a new one, and he then changes his personality of stubborn. The film also us that the journey of Carl working his way toward the Paradise Fall by walking, he faces many obstacle and he began to bond the relationship with Russell Kevin and Dug. Which is why the film has contain the sub-genre of road film.

In conclusion, Up main genre is Comedy-Drama film and mixed with other sub-genre to support the main genre. The film also show us the moral value of don’t be stubborn and stay in the comfort zone instead of going out and find a new life.

Paranorman

PARANORMAN

On week 5, we watched "Paranorman" in the class, the goal of this review is to analyze the mix genres, how post modernism affect this film, and semantic and syntactic. Paranorman is a 3D stop-motion film, which uses 3D printer to print the expressions of the character and physically animate it. The main genre of this film is Horror-Comedy genre, it is a genre which combines the elements of comedy and horror, which in this it often come across the black comedy and this film is more toward comedy genre because it is also a family film genre. 

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also under the category of horror, the lighting of this film was set to low lighting to show the mood of the film to the audience such as fear, disgust, anxiety etc. Syntactic approach to the elements in the narrative or ideology of the genre. Which depends on the types of characters, heroes vs antiheroes, Ideologies and structures (themes and conventions found in the film). Horror is intended to make the audience or viewer to feel frighten, scare or disgust making the audience to feel terror or horror. There various kinds of sub-genre under the Horror genre. In this film, the sub genre is unnatural horror which include zombie, witch and ghost. Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In Paranorman we can identify that there are some actions and jokes which are the sub-genre of the comedy which are dark comedy. Action film is a genre which is about storytelling through the physical action. The story usually is about a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible obstacles in order to achieve it. The film will often have many motions and actions which include physical stunts, pursuit, fights, and battles. Which in this film is how Norman overcome obstacles and resolve the problems and put the witch in peace. Post modernism is to subvert the mainstream of structure and characterization to tests the audience's delay of disbelief. 

The film start off with a young boy called Norman who has the ability to see the dead and able to communicate with them too. The people in the town and his family didn't believe him and think that he is a freak, but Neil, one of his classmates thinks that he is different and he become friend with Norman. Mr. Prenderghast told Norman that he is given the role of telling a bedtime story to the witch in order to put her into sleep for another year to stop the curse of the living dead. Norman thinks that the way people been doing for the past few years is not solving the problem, so he went to talk with the witch to find the solution. The witch is actually a little girl who was killed by the villager as she contain the same ability as Norman and they were afraid of her so they killed her. Norman talked to her and calmed her to made her remember the good memories with her mom, she was in peace and the curse was gone.

Analysis of the film, horror scene example, Where Norman go to Mr Prenderghast's house to find the book, in the scene where Norman walks across the room then he falls down then he was lying right next to Mr Prenderghast. Black comedy scene example, the others was trap inside the town hall where burning timber fall over them, after they find covers ,Courtney says If we die tonight, this may be the last chance I get to tell you how I feel

Mitch: Well, no unless we get brought back as zombies. Technically, you’ll have longer. Comedy scene example, where a guy buying snacks from the vending machine and he saw the zombies are coming, he was having hard time to decide whether to run or wait for the snack, as the zombies got close he decided to run away but the snack has drop down from the vending machine and he come back to grab it and run away again. Action scene example, when Norman and the others being car chased by the police at the same time have to deal with one of the zombie which are on the car. Postmodernism base on my understanding is to break the mainstream structure example, hero vs villain. In this film it kinda didn't show who is the real enemy, example, the zombie are actually mean no harm and the witch was actually a victim. Family film example, at the ending scene where Norman and all his family sit together and watch movie together.

In conclusion, Paranorman main genre is Comedy-Horror film and mixed with other sub genre to support the main genre. Postmodernism  also shows how to break the mainstream structure to make the film interesting. And the movie also show the moral value of don't judge the others try and step in their shoes and see what's their point of view. I also like the film using 3D printer to create the character.

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