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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