Wasp (Andrea Arnold), 2003
Genre- Social Realism
- Urban setting, housing estate (iconography)
- Naturalistic lighting
- Exterior setting-collage of shots around street/estate acts as establishing shot
- Shaky camerawork to represent tension or mood and perhaps suggests there's someone watching them eg. fighting scene, and audience
- Desaturated colour palette-around estate-clothes brightened up shots and lights in pub
- Mise en scene-props suggest poor, lack of money eg. mouldy bread
- Costume and make up realistic to setting and context-however nightie costume unusual in a street environment, suggests money troubles
- Mother costume in pub- red top, short denim skirt, high heels, loads of make up and hair in high ponytail, stereotype of a 'chav' or clothes seeming slutty and sexualised
- Children's costumes-fairy skirt, grubby, baby's bottom on show suggests appearance is not priority
- Barefoot close up-suggests she can't afford shoes
- Young child's face with dirt on-portrays poor
- Cluttered kitchen area, unhealthy food eg. crisps, mouldy bread-affordable food, although unhealthy, living is their priority
- Eye level shots as if audience is observing scenario- close up and extreme close up of short skirt, 'male eyes' looking at bum, objectifying the mother
Narrative
- Equilibrium-going out to pub with Dave, disruption-children, wasp in mouth (title-acts as a wake up call for mother, symbolic), resolution-going home in car with Dave
- Tells story in a short space of time
- Opening-children and mother marching out of house to an 'enemies' house, start a fight, creates a negative first impression of family-baby's bottom half not fully clothed
- Ending-become more sympathetic towards mother as she struggles to balance being a mother and having a social life; sympathy for children as they are abandoned outside, resort to picking up food from the floor to feed the hungry crying baby
Sound
- Ambient diegetic sounds eg. car, push chair, baby crying, rustling of crisps packet, talking from pub
- Accents- London, 'common', suggest lower class
- Mix of non-diegetic and diegetic soundtrack- 'Hey baby' song in pub and girls singing in car diegetic, non-diegetic in end credits
- Soundtrack connects with mood of scene- Ronan Keating love song in pub whilst the mother and Dave are getting together
Themes and Issues
- Love- Tension between Dave and mother
- Poverty- children hungry, have to pick food up off floor in desperation to feed crying baby
- Class Issues- estate, fighting over children being violent with another woman
- Money problems- couldn't afford proper meals-kids talk about want for fast food which suggests they have it often as it's cheap, couldn't afford drinks in pub so chooses a cheaper option
- Sympathy for mother-she's clearly struggling to cope with children and wants to have a normal social life; single mother receiving threats from other mother in pub ('bullethead')who consider her not fit to look after her children still as she has previously left them home alone before; no one to look after children to give her a break from things as suggested in phone conversation
- Sympathy for children-have to grow up fast to look after other siblings, left alone, hungry, dirty faced, violent and gobby to stick up for their mother-defending her
Comments
- Shake on the camera inspiring because it added tension and added interest
- Use of sound interesting-use of 'Hey baby' acting as both diegetic and non-diegetic soundtrack, cross between and integration of track
- Eye level shots to create impression someone is watching
- Tackles a sympathetic issue in an exposed way with a mature approach
- Bit of a random storyline with the wasp-however like the reasoning why it is used, wake up call for mother
Amie Nelms
1 comments:
love the way you have added "comments" at the end
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