2. Hello, My Name is Death takes us through a gamut of feelings throughout its short runtime; fear, intrigue, a slight tinge of uneasiness and most notably
confusion. It begins in a dark room with a bemused man (Andre Herzegovitch) sat on a chair, he is then approached by...well...Death itself and is
informed that he has been shot between the eyes by either of the two women who stand by his side. He is then informed by Death (Nileja James) that
he must figure out which of the two shot him in order to save himself from death.
What follows is a series of cryptic sequences where it is obvious that the vision of director Ziyad Saadi was not to give us the answer, but to simply let
us figure it out exactly like our protagonist. This is an interesting choice from Ziyad as it provides a challenge and takes multiple watches to begin to
even catch a glimpse of the real outcome.
One major thing to appreciate about this, is that it doesn’t take the safe route of normal
storytelling, Ziyad uses almost clockwork editing and repetition that dictates it’s slow pace,
using this technique does genuinely let the film simmer in your mind and ultimately leaves us questioning what we have witnessed.
The repetition I mentioned takes its form in a number of different ways other than its editing,
with the recurring lines like “Smile, it’s a beautiful day” and the subtly alarming soundtrack which is reminiscent of an angry and slow alarm clock.
There is also a very dark and almost seedy undertone to the short film with its use of profanity and suggestion of incest, a dark feeling that is doubled
by its surroundings, as a minimal amount of locations are used. We see our characters in the dark room and we see our protagonist on a
street with a melancholy expression on his face. Only seeing two varied locations began to
make me feel claustrophobic, again an obviously intentional choice.
This claustrophobia is also delivered to us with unrelenting close up shots that emphasise every movement of the performers' faces, which range from
bewildering to downright creepy.
Especially from actress Karah Serine whose sterile and unrelenting smile is unsettling to say the least.
When all of these elements collide together we are left with a piece that borders on being
arthouse, the only thing that separates it from fitting this category is the relatively plain and
ordinary look of the film, there were no particular shots that were a treat to the eye as we would see in more artistic pieces.
Although I have listed many positives that the film obviously has, it ultimately provides us with a
challenge but leaves us contemplating its overall plot and message, because of this it made me wish I was watching Ziyad’s vision applied to a different
plot.
3. Image
• The image in this film review displays a close-up shot of
a man looking forward with a completely black
background. The colour black has connotations of death
and mystery which therefore suggests that the man in
the image is the murderer and is surrounded by the
deaths of his victims. Additionally, the man is wearing a
white shirt which therefore contrasts against the black.
This means that the image could also suggest that the
man is innocent as the colour white has connotations of
innocence and that the real murderer is mystery. Also,
as there is a higher amount of black than white in the
image, it could suggest that the review is going to be
mostly negative but with some positive points as well
because black has connotations of bad and white has
connotations of good.
4. Language & Register
• The film title "Hello My name is Death" contains the
abstract noun "death" which is used as a name. This
therefore suggests that the storyline may build up to the
protaginists death or perhaps as the audience we see
the murderers persepctive. Additionally, the review use a
neutral register and complex lexical choices similar to
the Leslie short film review. Furthermore, this is because
the review uses words such as "gamut" which means the
complete range or scope of something. The review
suggests that the film takes the audeince on a "gamut of
feelings" which therefore means that the audience has
mixed emotions throughout the film. This suggests that
the genre is a drama as it is common in dramas to have
mixed emotions.
5. Layout & Page Design
• The film review has been laid out by first putting the film title "Hello
My Name is Death" ath the top of the page. The size of the font is 27
and the letters are in bold writing. This therefore makes the stand
out as it is bigger and bolder than the rest of the text in the review.
This tells the audeince the name of the film that is being reviewed
straight away as it is at the top of the page. Next, the film has
displayed an image from the film. The reason why the image is near
the top of the page is to remind the reader of the film and by seeing
the image, they may remember the scene it is from. The film review
then starts the briefly describing the events of the film followed by an
opinion of them. It has been set out like this as by describing the
events, the reader remembers the film better and therefore
undertsands the points the film review makes and is more likely to
agree with them as the reader understands them and the reasoning
behind them.
6. Mise en scene
• The background of the image is completely black.
Moreover, the colour black has connotations of death
and mystery which therefore suggests that the man in
the image is the murderer and is surrounded by the
deaths of his victims. Additionally, the man is wearing a
white shirt which therefore contrasts against the black.
This means that the image could also suggest that the
man is innocent as the colour white has connotations of
innocence and that the real murderer is mystery. Also,
the man's facial expressions show us that he is nervous
which suggests that perhaps he is in the middle of being
questioned as he may be a suspect for the murderer.
7. Mise en scene
• The background of the image is completely black.
Moreover, the colour black has connotations of death
and mystery which therefore suggests that the man in
the image is the murderer and is surrounded by the
deaths of his victims. Additionally, the man is wearing a
white shirt which therefore contrasts against the black.
This means that the image could also suggest that the
man is innocent as the colour white has connotations of
innocence and that the real murderer is mystery. Also,
the man's facial expressions show us that he is nervous
which suggests that perhaps he is in the middle of being
questioned as he may be a suspect for the murderer.
