Michelle Breland: Exploring Film Technique

Bunny
The short film, Bunny, is about love, death and dying, as the film follows an elderly rabbit on the night that she passes away. It attempts to show us what happens when we die and leaves enough breathing room for the audience to raise their own questions about the afterlife. Bunny touches on such a grim and mysterious subject matter (death) but is somehow able to simplify it through the colorful, child-like form of animation. Because there are no words throughout the film, the symbolism is very striking. The moth going towards the light represents an angel trying to lead bunny to the afterlife; the oven represents the vehicle to the afterlife; etc.

Northfork
This film, as well as the rest, felt like a blur. When you only get to see snippets of a film, it makes it very difficult to fully engage in the story.
There was a major symbolic scene that I noticed during the short time that I had to view the film: the coffin on the car (in relation to the mountains in the background). This represented how insignificant and short a person’s life is in relation to the earth (mountains).

Paris Texas
The major theme in this film was communication. Throughout Paris Texas there is a lot of imagery that signify the increase in lines of communication (i.e. phone lines, road crossing, airports, phones, etc). There are also moments in the film that elude to personal journeys, such as the two brothers. Towards the beginning of the film, there are mountains in the background of both of the brothers; the texture and size of the mountains indicate the difficulty of each man’s journey. Throughout the film, there is also this lingering, mysterious story about Travis and his wife, who have not spoken in some time. The film ends with a moment of actual connection when Travis finally faces the glass and turns a lamp on his face so that his wife can see him.

Pink Floyd
The Wall was some kind of dark and twisty. The animation of war was very macabre with its inclusion of blood and crosses. There was powerful moment when the blood from the soldiers ran off into the gutters, symbolizing a waste of life. The education scene spoke to the factory-like structure of the system and how it squanders creativity and individuality. This can be seen when Pink gets in trouble for writing poetry and also with the presence of masks over the children’s faces after they exit the educational assembly line.

Cabeza de Vaca
There was a lot of strong Christian symbolism in the beginning of the film when the girl comes back to life (referencing the resurrection). From the little bit that I saw, I found it to be about the contrast of two cultures and the main character realizing that the Indians are not savages and do not need to be Christianized. This can be seen towards the end when he moves from two different backgrounds while confronting his own people: construction and nature.