Editing/Sound:
Beginning -
- Audience presented with scene in slow motion/emphasises the mother's struggle to control her child [Disorientated sound communicates idea of unstable emotions and her current struggle]/Scene has a warm hue which suggests the idea of a calm situation but is ironic as it is not
- Contrapuntal sound becomes in focus/violin suppose to normally emit calm and soothing emotions but contrasts with the screams of the child and the on-screen struggle
- Red colour on credits suggests and element of danger/foreshadowing the mother's problem with her child
- No context is yet defined so it is shown in subjective time/enables audience to experience the same time the characters go through and their emotions
- Close-up also show the distress of the character
- Vehicles cross the screen so audience are now aware of the setting/has connotations that life is going by in a separate world in comparison to the hectic life the characters are experiencing
- Supports Barthes' Theory of narrative as the Enigma code is applied and leaves audience questioning and in mystery after this opening scene
Middle -
- Transition (dissolve) to a white background with plain black font that says "This is a true story" - reinforces the seriousness/transition in combination with removal of sound suggests a transferral from dream to reality
- "1993" allows audience to contextualise the situation
- Long-shots allows audience to familiarise themselves with the characters and setting
- Over-the-shoulder/high angle shot of shop assistant - shows point of view of the protagonist as well as the struggle she is experiencing with the child
- Mid-angle shot of the characters at the counter who judge the situation also encourage audience to make the same, if not, similar judgement on the mother and child (see stereotypes)
- Hand-held shot out of shop gives the idea for the moment that we are by-standers
- Action-editing during mother's struggle with son to emphasise the difficulty she is experiencing as well as sharing the action with the mother/uses real time with cars going by/we are parallel emotionally to what the mother is going through
Ending -
- Diegetic sound used to converse of characters helps us realise that the child has autism
- Non-diegetic sound in office (fire alarm) - audience understand by actions of character evacuating as well as the from their own knowledge it is a fire alarm/increase tension
- Mid-angle in Office/as if audience are viewing from an office chair and in same position as the man they are seeing continuing to do his work/also allows to see the man's annoyance at the situation and his boss's reaction/Typical office props of computer, desks etc enables audience to set the scene and understand his working environment and even job status
- The man in suit in comparison to the working man's shirt and ragged tie suggests that he has higher authority over him/gives audience context
Representation/Theories
- Representation of disability and the reality with coping with it/portrayed by the woman and her struggle to control her autistic child
- Ideology that parents who have to look after a disabled child have to not only cope with their child but with other people's ignorance that she is a bad mother instead
- Stereotypes are present as the on-looking Mother and her daughter make the assumption that the woman is a bad mother as her child is out of control but is unaware until after the child has a tantrum that he has autism and so is hard to control.
- Challenges Propp's theory as it begins with no equilibrium, that there is a state of normality, when in fact the mother and child's life is far beyond normality
- It cooperates with Straus' theory as it contains binary opposites, the 'normal' girl in the store in comparison to the 'subnormal' boy/each other their families' contrasting lives.
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