In the short film “The return” produced by Navajo Joe Films, the director uses the aspects of camera shot, music and sounds, editing and lighting to show the message that we, as humans, need redemption and forgiveness to move past things. This film follows the story of a man who seeks redemption for his mistakes in the past.
The director of “The Return” shows their message through the use of camera shots. By using this aspect they help contribute overall mood and message of the film by using the camera shots to create emotion and understanding of the situation. The director uses the technique of close up to show the emotions of both the boy and the man to manipulate us into sympathy for the situation that he is in. This can be seen in an example at the beginning of the film where they show the man walking along the street, the close up of the feet as they walk along the road shows the struggle that he feels as he tries to make his way along the road toward the house where he hurt of killed the boys mother ( we do not know for sure as it is never confirmed). This and the jump cuts to a close up on his face, which shows how much he is struggling to walk along this path is effective because the way his feet drag as he walks and his facial expressions show how weighed down he is and how much he regrets and seeks redemption for what he had done.
The director used the technique of extreme close up to show us more of the emotions the boy and the man were feeling. This can be seen by the extreme close up of the boys face after his mother is hit shows the emotions of great sadness and hurt as well as the anger he is feeling towards the man for hurting his mother. This technique is also useful to help us see the small details on the boys face, like the tears and the raindrops as he shakes his head and turns away from the man. This makes us as an audience see and feel the sadness that the boy felt and also the hatred and anger he felt towards that man in that moment. These two techniques show the effectiveness of the camera shots that the director used when trying to communicate the message that we, as humans, need to be redeemed and forgiven to move past things ourselves by intensifying the emotions felt by the characters and projecting them onto us, making us sympathise with the characters.
The director uses the aspect of editing to strenthen their message in the film “The Return”. The editing of this film uses flashback and jump cuts to contribute to the mood and the message of the film to help them intesify emotion and understanding of the situation. They use flashbacks to help establish what has happened to get to this point in the man’s life and make our judgement on the character. This can be seen throughout the flashbacks of the film when it starts off with a flashback of a bloodied hand, making us wonder what happened and what his relationship to that hand is. The use of flashbacks also is used to show the innocence of the man, who looked as though he had just finished school, and the child, who would lose his innocence by seeing his mother hurt or killed (as I said before, it was not confirmed). The man would forever hold the responsibility and guilt for hurting someone in the way that he did when the accident happened. Then it begins to establish who the victim was, she was a mother, which makes us feel more hostile towards the man for hurting or killing her and leaving her family alone. After she is hit the flashback shows a basketball rolling down the street, showing the boys childhood innocence leaving him behind as he witnessed this event.
The jump cuts are used by the director to give us a feeling of the way that the event has affected the man. The jump cuts give us an understanding of what has happened, as we begin to understand as it flashes back to the blood covered hand and then back to him wincing at the memory of what happened that day. This gives us the feeling that something bad had happened and that he doesn’t forgive himself for what had happened. The jump cuts also give us a sense of the urgency of the man – that he needs to be forgiven for what he has done – or it could have bad consequences. This is evident as he gets closer and closer towards the front door of the house, it gets Worse and worse until it begins to get overwhelming at the thought of what had happened. These two techniques show the effectiveness of the editing that the director used when trying to communicate the message that we, as humans, need to be redeemed and forgiven to move past things ourselves by having the effect of intensifying the emotions felt by the characters and projecting them onto us as an audience, making us sympathise with the characters and perhaps relate to the feelings that they are feeling and the overall mood of heavy guilt of what has happened.
The director uses the aspect of music and sound to communicate his message of in the film “The Return”. The sound and music uses the techniques ambient sound and music to set the sombre mood of the film and make us relate more to the mood. The director uses the technique of music to communicate the feeling that the man had about the accident and what he was going to do. The soft piano music played in a minor key helped as the minor key is the more sad key and it gives us a feeling that we are about to witness something terrible. It also helps to intensify the feelings that the character is feeling. This helps set the mood by giving us an emotional link to the scene. The piano music also gives us a feeling of the overwhelming guilt that the man felt after what he had done and how he feels the need to be forgiven.
The director uses the technique of ambient sound to give us the feeling that we are there, in the film and standing behind the character as he faces down the doom he feels as he visits the house. The howling wind gives us a sense of how abandoned the character feels in that situation and creates a sympathy towards the character and what has happened, although we don’t yet know what what he has done. The ambient sound in the flashback of children playing in the background as the boy is picked up from school represents the security of childhood which he lost after the accident involving his mother, this made us feel sorry for both the man and the boy as they both lost the innocence that they had before that moment. This combined with the piano music gives us a feeling of the overwhelming guilt and sadness felt by the man, as well as his need to be forgiven for what he had done. These two techniques helps intensify the director’s message that we, as humans, need to be forgiven and makes us, as the audience, sympathise with both of the characters and their positions.
The director uses the aspect of the actors’ performance in the film “The Return” to communicate his message and give us more insight into the characters as a whole. The director uses the techniques of dialogue, facial expression and gestures to strengthen his message and give us, the audience a better understanding of the situation we witnessing. These techniques also intensify the mood by creating tension between the characters, adding to the sad mood. The technique of dialogue in this film contributes to the mood of this film by showing us the power that words, or lack of words, have in people. When the man asks the boy to forgive him the boy doesn’t say anything but just shakes his head. This shows the weight of the lack of dialogue as it settles of the man and we feel sympathy for the man – who made a silly mistake that lead to a tragic consequence – and the boy who had just seen his mother hit and in that moment didn’t feel that he could forgive the man. Later in the film we see this technique again as the man asks the boy as second time to forgive him and as the boy says he does forgive him you can see the weight lift from his shoulders as the man begins to smile. This makes us as an audience feel the relief that the man feels at the words of forgiveness, showing us the power of words, or lack thereof. This helps communicate the directors message that we, as humans, need to be forgiven by showing the weight and power of words, or lack of.
The techniques of facial expression and gestures go hand in hand in this film. They work together to help intensify the mood of sadness that surrounds the entire film and helps to communicate the director’s message. We see this technique at the beginning of the film as the man experiences a flashback of a bloodied hand and then flinches away, as though the memory physically hurts him to think about. His facial expression shows the anguish he feels from that accident and the gesture of turning away supports this as its as if he were physically turning his back on the incident and trying to forget it. We see these techniques throughout the film but it is very prominent in the scene where he walks up to the door of the house that the people he has hurt live in. We see him reaching for the doorbell and hesitating. His facial expression shows that he is debating running off, but then steeling himself, he realises that this is the only way to make it better. We can see the technique of gestures as his hand shakes as he slowly reaches up to press the doorbell and then quickly pulls it alway after he presses it, as though it hurt him to touch it. This makes us as an audience feel as the nerves he feels and the significance of this action. He is facing his demons head on. After he is forgiven, the feeling of relief settles over us, the audience and we share the relief he feels as he realises that he has been forgiven. These techniques help strengthen the aspect of actors performance and allows us to really finally realise the full extent of the directors message that we, as humans, need to be forgiven for thing.
In conclusion theses aspects allow us to feel what the characters are feeling and really communcate the message that we , as humans need to be forgiven. They help set and create the mood of sadness and desperation that they man and the boy feel by making us sympathise with them and through them we feel the emotions they feel.