2. Intro
Denis Villeneuve, who directed Next Floor (2008), uploaded the movie to Vimeo
and went on to win multiple prizes. Throughout the movie, we observe servers
serving an unending supply of food to 11 guests, who devour it without stopping.
However, the guests' incessant eating causes them to trip and fall to their deaths.
The fact that this movie addresses the real-world problem of greed leads me to
assume that it is a social realism movie. The movie also has a lesson in it about how
being overly greedy may be fatal.
3. the whole movie is set in a dimly lit, dark environment, which casts many shadows
and gives the visitors the appearance of dark characters. This is because black is
associated with evil, making the visitors appear to the audience to be adversaries.
Furthermore, all of the guests in the movie do nothing but eat and remain silent the
entire time. This demonstrates the usefulness of low-key lighting since the
audience may infer that the characters are bad without the need for the movie to
explicitly state this.
4. One of the waiters is shown glaring cross-eyed at the camera at the opening of the movie,
which is darkly lit and gives the waiter a scary appearance. The visitors are then seen
seated around a large table with food in the center. The waiters continue to provide an
endless supply of food to the customers, who immediately eat it and start eating
continuously. The guests eventually end up eating so much that they collapse to the
ground below. As soon as this occurs, we observe the waiters running to the lower level to
clean up the visitors before continuing to serve them.
This scene, in my opinion, is quite powerful since it amply demonstrates how the wealthy
will ultimately be brought low by their own greed, as well as their selfishness in not tipping
the waitstaff. This implies that Villeneuve likewise thinks that the wealthy simply care
about themselves and have no regard for the poor. And even though the rich have
enough of things, don't consider helping or giving anything to the poor.
5. The waiters continue to serve the visitors for the duration of the movie, which is extremely similar
to the opening sequence in which the guests keep falling. The visitors keep eating non stop
throughout and at times even seem to be speeding up, emphasizing their gluttony. The waiters'
phrase "Next Floor" is all that is said throughout the movie whenever a guest falls. This
demonstrates the movie's efficacy since it still manages to convey a message to the audience
despite the fact that none of the characters speak. The guests eventually fall into a bottomless pit
as a result of this, which brings the movie to a close.
The visitors are being brought there for their consent and selfishness, in my opinion, and the
bottomless pit stands in for damnation. I think this is successful because it demonstrates that the
visitors have the ability to stop themselves from falling farther even though they are aware that
their eating is what is making them stumble. This may depict the wealthy who have the option to
share some of their money but instead choose to retain it for themselves.
6. Overall, I think this is a really effective social realism movie with a strong message
that greed can bring people down. It also has a moral that you shouldn't be greedy
and rather share with others when you can.
