2. Opening title sequence
A man wakes up on the beach, there are multiple close up hand held shots
of him getting up, this takes over a minuet.
The hand held shots represent confusion and unease. The slowness
represents slowly coming to sense with the surroundings.
Once he's stood up, there is a long shot, the first long shot, from behind
him. It shows him looking out onto a magical mystical place. The audience
aren't sure what this place is, but are intrigued.
This here creates enigma, as we have no idea what's happening.
A side ways shot of the man lurching foreword and after a quick cut, he
wakes up on the sidewalk, blood over his hands and a bloody t-shirt. As he
looks around he sees a woman with a mugger standing over her, she has
either just been stabbed or about to be, she is curled up, looking at her
father.
This shows women need protecting and that the mystical place was
another realm of sorts. Heaven as some people will workout.
A close-up of the fathers face as he bellows the name “charlotte” and then
the title sequence “trauma” cuts in.
Throughout the waking up scene the credits are rolling in different corners.
3. Entire narrative
After his daughters death, and intensive surgery, the man awakes, to come to grieve
about the loss of his daughter. Whenever he closes his eyes, visions of “heaven” fade in, a
happier place. He attempts to get the police more interested in the mugging but there
not. He slowly drifts more and more into depression, and heaven becomes more inviting,
he falls out with his wife and is soon laid off. He eventually tries to commit suicide, but
non of his attempts in doing so succeed, the rope he uses to hang himself with snaps. The
car he tries to use to gas himself, wont start. The bleach he drinks doesn’t kill him. Soon
when he closes his eyes he pictures himself with his daughter in heaven, but still he
cannot kill himself. Finally one night, as he is about to jump off a building, he comes across
another jumper by the name of Emma. Who too is ready to end it all, the sit on the
window ledge, for hours discussing life, watching the twinkling of the city light below and
the stars above. Soon James asks why Emma, a beautiful young woman wanted to jump,
she explains about her abusive relationship. And a series of flashbacks occur, showing the
gory of abuse. The mans face always hidden. Once over Emma pulls out her wallet to let it
plummet to the ground. As she does, James sees a photo in her wallet. The mugger. Mad
with rage he tells Emma to stand up for herself. They go to the police station and get
James arrested, but with James word against the muggers and no substantial evidence,
he's free. Same with Emma and the abuse, there are some cuts and bruises, but nothing
to get the mugger put away for a substantial amount of time.
This is a representation of male superiority, its his word against hers, and he wins.
4. Narrative Continued.
A trial begins though, as police begin to investigate more, they ask James a lot of personal questions
about the relationship he had with his daughter. He reveals a mixed relationship with his daughter,
how they had only recently started getting on, because he was a recovered alcoholic and drug user.
The police soon seem to think that he murdered his daughter and his wounds were self sustained, that
with his history of suicide, substantial evidence is found against him. Meanwhile Emma is back to living
with the mugger, but kept under surveillance, the heaven is almost sarcastically loving. As the police
withdraw he once again turns violent, and one day, Emma hangs herself.
James finds himself now entirely alone, and his still has lots of flashbacks of heaven. He slowly goes
crazy, every noise frightens him, he becomes mentally more unstable, until finally he just takes his own
life.
As he awakes in a field, his daughter is leaning over him sun flowing through her hair, she's smiling.
Looks around and finds himself in heaven.
The last shot is of a smiling body splattered on a pavement, the camera slowly tracking up to the top of
the building.
My film being a drama covers issues ranging from suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction,
relationship issues, abuse and male supremacy. The isses are all hard issues and are
there to make the sophisticated a – b audience think, and not be negligent about
trauma and its effects.
Also about the ideology of heaven, throughout the entire film, heaven is what tempted
him to kill himself, so is heaven a positive influence in todays society? The film ends on
a sort of cliff hanger, the audience goes off thinking “what happens next?”
5. Representations of men
There are many representations here, he fails at
suicide, representing the strength of men, how he
can drink bleach and survive. But also how weak
they can be emotionally, how as his mental state
degraded throughout the film and he became more
unstable, his emotions change throughout, a whole
rainbow of emotions, ending on happy at the end.
Men are represented as colourless compared to
him for the rest of the film because of this, the
cops are specifically bleak and every civilian too,
lacks emotion, therefore he stands out compared
to everyone else. It shows the isolation that these
6. The film essentially follows the
human psyche after a traumatic event
and the way society handles it, and
the negative influences that religion
and ignorance can have on these
cases.
