ABOUT A GIRL - Analysis

HOW DOES THE DIRECTOR MAKE AN IMPACT ON THE AUDIENCE THROUGH THE CHARACTER OF A GIRL  

Throughout this film the director uses a wide variety of film techniques and a great use of editing including lighting, setting, camera shots, editing, etc. At the beginning of the film we get a shot of her against the sky in which we can only see her silhouette, this can be pathetic fallacy with the grey cloudy skies representing the mood of the overall film. We can see she's singing "stronger" by Britney Spears which might be seen as a form of foreshadowing of the girl's aspirations for the future, since from the start the short film makes it clear that by the way and in the place she's been brought up she doesn't have a typically bright future.

In the following scenes we follow this girl with the camera at eye height, filmed in a documentary style, the height of the camera can help the audience to sympathise with her especially as she talks about her experiences in her home and her neglectful parents. As we follow her along as she speaks we see her use very closed off body language which demonstrates a very solitary character, this completely juxtaposes with the way she speaks, as she comes off as more open and vocal about her issues. 

In the next scene we see her waiting for her dad to finish playing football, which immediately suggests that she doesn't have a close relationship with him and how distant they are and might not engage with each other. As a result, the audience develops a stronger bond with the character and builds sympathy and compassion for her and her situation. Through out the film there's a lot of cuts and quick jump cuts, this might have been done to unsettle the audience and keep them on their toes or preparing them for the plot twist at the end, the quick editing also helps create the illusion that this is a homemade film.

Further on, we are shown a scene in which there is a focus shift onto the mothers figure which draws attention away from the girl, while leaving her out of focus. This implies that the mother might be self absorbed or even that the mother has a bigger importance and role in society than the girl, almost making the girl seem inferior. Also, the scratch card on the mothers hand suggests that she values money and material things over her own family, but also implying how the girl is probably of a struggling nature and middle class. 

The ending of the film is arguably one of the most significant parts of the film, we are shown how this character that we've been forced to sympathise with and have compassion for is completely nonchalant as she throws away a living baby in the river with 0 disregard for it, obviously this affects the audience by making them question if they've been empathising with an evil character all along and if they've just done it because they felt pity because of the situation she was in. The build up for this scene is made up of really quick cuts of her rambling about how she's more mature than what everyone else thinks, shifting to shots of her in complete silence, this makes the audience question if she might be unsure of something she's about to do or if she's hiding something very serious from the audience which is then revealed. As she disposes of the bag with the baby inside, we get a very different shot as to what we've had so far, we get a shot from a bird's eyes view, this perspective completely changes the mood and the tone for the whole movie, almost as if this very real character we've been following all along has all of a sudden become a fictional character that you're made to despise. The lack of dialogue coming from the girl in this scene also changes the way the audience is made to feel, up to this point we've had an eye angle, but now were distancing from the girl, immediately breaking off the connection we had built. The film ends with the same song the girl was singing at the start, cyclical, almost as if everything is back to normal in her life making us question if she might've done this before, and even though we might not want to continue empathising with her we can't help it, and we start wondering deeper into her situation.