Sarita Madrid, Exploring Film Technique

Bunny

            The idea of the short film called Bunny revolves around the idea of death and the afterlife. The movie begins with a light and something fluttering towards it. Following that, the scene opens with an old female bunny baking in her kitchen. As she bakes, there is a moth that knocks into the light above her. As the viewer, we know that moths die when they go by lights for too long. This seems to be a foreshadowing of what happens later in the film; the moth is notifying her that it is her time. Nevertheless, she ignores the moth until it knocks into one of the picture frames then she proceeds to gets angry however it seems like it is for a bigger reason than simply messing up the frame. The frame holds a picture of a young couple that was most likely a picture of her husband and her on their wedding day, before he died.

            She seems to still be grieving over his loss and shows it through her anger towards the moth. After she kicks the moth out, it somehow gets back into the house and starts bothering her again by running into the light and messing up the house. This time she becomes furious and hits the moth. It falls into her batter and she energetically mixes the batter and cooks it, taking out her anger on the moth. While she sleeps, a blue light appears to be shining from the stove. She awakens, opens the oven, and proceeds to crawl in.

            This bluish light is very mysterious and until she crawls into the oven, the viewer is unsure about what is going to happen. We also wonder why she is crawling into an oven but later reason that it could be symbolic. Just like an oven transforms whatever food is in it, death transforms a person into another form as they go into the afterlife. We see the bunny grow wings and join many other moths as they fly towards the light. The moths could represent the soul joining other souls to go to heaven.

Harold and Maude

            In the movie Harold and Maude, there is a mother and a son (Harold) who have a rocky relationship due to the fact that he does not receive the loving attention he desires from his mother. Throughout the movie, he attempts to make her care about him by playing suicidal pranks. In the particular scene we saw, he sets a fake dummy on fire outside so that the suitor will leave the house. As she flees the house, his mother looks angrily at him while he rejoices over his success. The cameras close-up provides an angle from slightly below eye level of both Harold and his mother while she stands behind him and he makes eye contact with the audience for approval.

When he makes eye contact with the audience, he appears to smirk as if he is content with himself and even nods in self-approval. In the meantime, his mother is eyeing Harold up and down and looks fed up with his antics. She glares at him until he looks towards her before immediately deflating. Yet again, Harold is not receiving the love and attention he is looking for and that is expected from a mother. Instead, he gets extreme disapproval and resentment from her, which makes him feel ashamed.

Later, there is a scene of Maude talking to Harold about life and death. Harold seems to focus more on death and Maude focuses on the beauty of life and living it to the fullest. She does this by talking about flowers as they walk in a field of flowers and asking him what he would be? He replies, “I don’t know, one of these… because they’re all alike.” To emphasize this point, the camera is far away looking at all the flowers, which appear to be very similar. Maude explains that they are actually not; they are each different. Meanwhile, the camera zooms on the flowers while she explains some are tall, some are fat, some lean to the left, and some lean to the right. This highlights the fact that at a distance everyone can appear the same however at a closer look everyone is very different. She goes on to say, “It is a pity that unique people allow themselves to be treated like everyone else.”

Following that, the camera is zoomed in on a graveyard where they are standing and then slowly zooms out as the graveyard stones begin to blend together. This seems to be emphasizing Harold’s point earlier about everyone being the same. I thought it was interesting that they used a scene with flowers then a graveyard because they had been talking about life and death. I noticed that both the flowers and the graveyard stones are white, which could represent new life and the new perspective that Maude is showing Harold.

Paris Texas

            Paris Texas begins with a far away shot of the vast landscape of mountains and dry land. Next, it shows a falcon watching a man, named Travis, as he wanders across the desert with a water jug. As he takes the last sip, the camera shifts to his point of view of the endless miles of desert in front of him. The viewer gets the sense that he has walked very far and still has a long way to go. In the next scene, his brother, Walter, finds him walking on the side of the road along the phone lines. Travis is wearing a red had which could signify his stress about the situation he is in. The hill behind Travis enhances this idea even more so as it is rocky while the hill behind Walter is grassy. As Walter attempts to talk to Travis and get him in the car, Travis keeps glancing away at the telephone lines. It is ironic how telephone lines allow communication but Travis is not communicating at all with his brother.

Communication and travel seem to be reoccurring themes throughout the scenes in the symbols of means of transportation. In one scene, Travis leaves the motel he is at and Walter finds him walking on the railroad tracks. When Walter asks, “what’s out there?,” Travis simply looks to the horizon as if he is looking for something that is “out there.” Later on, he sits outside next to a line of shoes drying and he uses binoculars to look at airplanes. Both the shoes and airplanes are means of transportation that help you get somewhere. Yet again, he seems to be looking for something because he uses binoculars to see the far away objects.

           The movie uses a following shot as Travis walks across the bridge on the freeway towards a loud voice. He stops briefly to acknowledge and pat the man who is yelling out of pity. The man yelling is trying to send a message to the cars driving below him but seems crazy (although he says he is not) for trying to do this because he is obviously reaching no one from where he is. It is interesting that Travis pats the man yelling because gestures like patting are a type of non-verbal communication so it seems like he is getting better at communicating. We know he is still searching for something because he is carrying around binoculars however he seems to be getting closer to what he is looking for since he is wandering in the city as opposed to the vast, open wilderness.

            His communication skills begin to improve even more which we can see as he talks to his son. Both Travis and his son go on a road trip and pull over on the side of the road to eat. During their meal, they sit and bond while the busy traffic goes by them. It is an interesting place for bonding to occur as they are in between many different freeways with lots of traffic. I feel as though it would be hard to have a meaningful conversation amidst the busyness.

            Travis eventually arrives at his destination and finds his wife in a brothel house, where she is kept in a room with a one-way mirror. This allows the customer to see her but she cannot see the customer thus Travis can visit her without revealing himself. Through the speaker, she communicates to him that she understands his difficulty in talking to strangers but she will listen because she is used to it. This is an ironic statement for two reasons. Firstly, she does not know that they are not strangers. Secondly, Travis had walked away so she was in a way speaking to her own reflection when she said she would listen, which makes it seem as though she wants someone to talk to that will listen to her.

            Another time he visits her, they are able to reconnect because he tells a story about them and she realizes it is her husband. She tries to look at him through the one-way mirror and their connection is underlined as their images merge on the mirror. Travis suggests that she turn off the light in her room and he will put the light on his face so she can see him. When this happens, two reflections of her appear and one of them appears over his face. This is significant because he seems to be seeing her through her own eyes since he cannot see her and can only see his own reflection. Travis informs her that their son is in the city with him and she begins to talk about all her regrets in raising their son. She kneels like she is in confession and she admits her feelings of being upset because she felt incapable of raising him.

Pink Floyd

         In Pink Floyd, there was animation of the war that showed the blood, destruction, and depravity of it. The many images that flashed across the screen also showed how the unfortunate circumstances of war negatively affect society as well. There were several crosses that appeared throughout the images and I pondered what their significance was. Another scene we watched was about the school children in the song about no education. The scene displayed students on a conveyer belt like they were being manufactured; this could be representative of students learning what the teachers want them to rather than creatively expressing themselves. The students are saying, “We don’t need an education” because it seems pointless to get one. Additionally, all of the students are marching in single file line and the students on the conveyer belts have the similar masks on making them all the same, which goes with the idea that they are being forced to be the same. In addition, the teachers are abusive towards the children so they are just “another brick in the wall” to them.

         For example, one of the teachers in the movie is mean and controlling towards his students because he lacks control at home. This lack of control and the fact that he does not have intimacy influence the scene with the wall. During the animation, there appears to be two flowers and the viewer is led to believe that he is having fantasies to compensate for the lack of intimacy in his real life. Because he cannot find intimacy, he also builds a wall and fills it with material things to fill the void he is experiencing. Flashes of violent encounters show on the screen as well to indicate he finds intimacy in violence towards the children.  

During the scene with the wall, the teacher encounters the judge of his actions towards the children. Before the judge comes out, the viewer sees other body parts or creatures that we think the judge may be. However, the judge turns out to be an “asshole” because those who judge others are not kind. I can see why society thinks that those who judge are “assholes” but I think that judgments on actions, not souls, are necessary to know what is right and wrong. I would agree with you though when you said that judging people does not help with healing. Following the judge’s appearance, there are multiple flashes of sexual and violent scenes again which goes back to his replacement of violence for intimacy.