Silent things - Kayla Jennifer - Representation

Silent things

The film starts with ELS of two people on a deserted beach. The weather is bright and sunny. There is no dialogue only the ambient diegetic sound of the waves and wind. As the scene evolves we are introduced to two characters flying a kite, they appear content with each other.

The scene changes and we see the man on his own flying the kite. There is a LS and a girl slowly walks into the shot. The fact the girl has walked into a shot of the man alone could be a sign that she has disrupted his peace.

 

All of a sudden there are faint voices and it cuts to a MCU of the mans facial expression from which we can see he is uncomfortable we can also make out blurry figures in the background. The dialogue gets slightly louder as the boys seem to be shouting at the girl who is now standing next to the man with the kite.

 

The first clear dialogue we hear is the girl shouting back at the boys “he is my boyfriend, so why don’t you just fuck off.” This is a stereotypical reaction from teenagers. The man straight away asks her why she lied. The man states that he cannot lie. The man then tells her that he has Asperger’s Syndrome. Once he has admitted this his behaviour becomes clearer to the viewer. The mans friend walks back into the shot and asks him who the girl is. He replies that she is his friend. The girl is a disruption to his everyday routine and so throughout the film we are made aware he does not like change.

The next shot is the man and the girl sitting on the beach, there is no dialogue between them at this stage. A large boat slowly appears in the shot, this is to emphasise the fact his routine has been disrupted much like the shot has been disrupted by the boat.

The next scene is of the pair on the ferry and immediately you can see that the man is becoming more uncomfortable from his body language and facial expression. The lighting is different from the other scene, it is more red as the sun is setting but it also gives this scene a different feel as the man clearly feels uncomfortable and red usually symbolises something bad is going to happen.

There is lots of disorientated ambient sound and blurry shots of people moving about in the scene and this is clearly causing the man to become extremely stressful and anxious. The editing frequency becomes quicker as it flicks through the various types of people aboard the boat.

 

The girl tries to touch him and this causes him to flinch and back away from her. This shows the viewer that his behaviour is typical of someone who suffers from a disability such as his. He does not like noise, crowds and being touched.

The closing sequence shows the man back on the beach flying his kite. There is no dialogue just the ambient sound of the waves and wind similarly to the start. He looks relaxed again. His friend walks into the shot and stands next to him. The last shot is of the pair working together on the kite once again totally at ease with each other. The man is back in familiar surroundings and so is relaxed.

  

The very last shot is an ELS of the two flying the kite, it is the same shot used to introduce the film and works well to end it as it’s the man’s routine to fly the kite. The only difference in the shot is the lighting appears much darker at the end of the film due to the incident on the boat.