Prisoner of the Mountains In his 1996 movie, Prisoner of the Mountains, which takes place towards the end of the First Chechen War, Sergei Bodrov captures the complex relationship, one of mutual and engrained hatred, between Russia and Chechnya. The film provides an inside perspective into the conflict between Russia and Chechnya through the eyes of Vania and Sacha, two captured Russian soldiers. Not only does Sergei Bodrov focus on the war and battles between the two sides, but he also cultivates the underside of the conflict, the characters on both sides. While the predominant plot is serious in its depiction of the war, Bodrov includes less intense scenes in order make the film more thought-provoking and to develop the personalities of …show more content…
The film portrays an enthralling view of life during wartime, seen through the eyes of certain characters, each with his own perspective and agenda. Throughout the film, one can see the realism of the war, including the effective use of cultural tags, such as costumes, prayer, and music. Additionally, the mountain scenery establishes the setting and provides context to the overall story, giving the audience the sense that they are present within the framework of the film. By establishing well developed characters and utilizing remarkable photography of the small village, Bodrov helps us face the tragedy of the war in addition to the madness of human conflict.
Bodrov presents the film in an extremely poetic manner in which images and folkloric scenes are well dressed with silent and simple Russian music. Furthermore, there are many well developed scenes, such as the older man loading his son's dead body, that illustrate the humanistic hardships families faced on both sides of the war. While the mother of the Russian and the old man, Abdul, meet each other as enemies, they both encounter the mutual feelings though as parenthood is above all wars. This goes to reflect the reality of the citizens, tirelessly waiting for the wars to
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Through the use of long shots, the director portrays the town as very miserable, an aspect essential to the plot and theme. Just as the film has begun, while the two soldiers are riding up the mountain, the audience feels a sense of subjectivity. The use of a hand-held camera, moving up and down, allows the audience to feel as if though they are present within the framework of the film. This scene then leads into a long shot, in which the setting is established and the audience has a clear view of where the film takes place. Furthermore, the camera angles and close shots add much detail and emotion. For example, while Dina is informing Vanya about the death of her brother and his fate, she is standing above him, in a higher elevation, and the scene is captured through a high angle shot. In this scene, Dina’s elevation indicates her power over Vanya, especially when she refuses to bring him the keys to the chains. Finally, in the end of the film, while the helicopters are heading to attack the village of Chechnya, Vanya becomes smaller and smaller in comparison to the whole screen, an effect of the long shot. This is done to portray him as helpless, weak, and powerless, desperately jumping up and down, unable to stop the helicopters form destroying the
The close up shot of the sheriff overlooking the people on the beach with the look of concern and distress, opposed to the family in the background, smiling and enjoying the nice sunny day. This shot of him explains his perturb feeling that he knows what awaits in the water, unlike everyone else. The long shot of the person floating in the middle of the sea exposed makes the audience feel relaxed but also cautious. Over the shoulder shot shows the attention is not on the man talking to the sheriff but on the woman in the sea, which was a false alarm, of the woman screaming, but also keeps the audience alert. Another long shot is shown when the children get up to go to sea, makes the audience anxious for danger that is about to happen.
Lewis Milestone’s “All’s Quiet on the Western Front”, based on Erich Remarque’s novel, is an incredibly disturbing and effective anti-war film. The grainy black and white film is still not outdated and carries a breathtaking initial impact. The prologue that introduces the film gives its anti-war intentions immediately and beautifully.
Through these brutal and traumatic scenes, the novel presents several themes, one of which is “Loss of Youth.” These young soldiers endure a lot, pai...
He arrives back at his town, unused to the total absence of shells. He wonders how the populations can live such civil lives when there are such horrors occurring at the front. Sitting in his room, he attempts to recapture his innocence of youth preceding the war. But he is now of a lost generation, he has been estranged from his previous life and war is now the only thing he can believe in. It has ruined him in an irreversible way and has displayed a side of life which causes a childhood to vanish alongside any ambitions subsequent to the war in a civil life. They entered the war as mere children, yet they rapidly become adults. The only ideas as an adult they know are those of war. They have not experienced adulthood before so they cannot imagine what it will be lie when they return. His incompatibility is shown immediately after he arrives at the station of his home town. ”On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"—She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.” He is now aware of what she is
The use of mass terror was one of the most representative characteristics of the Stalinist regime. The Gulag embodied the constant and large scale use of fear by the Bolsheviks to administer the population. Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales and Fyodor Mochulsky’s Gulag Boss stood out by their treatment of the question. While relating the same events, namely the daily routine of an arctic Gulag, these two works dealt with this topic from two diametrically opposed perspectives. Indeed, Shalamov was a political prisoner for seventeen years while Mochulsky was a supervisor in the camp. Therefore, their experience of the Gulag diverged in nearly every aspect. Furthermore, Mochulsky and Shalamov pursued different designs. On the one hand, Shalamov attempts to depict the Gulag’s ability to dehumanize prisoners. On the other hand, Mochulsky wrote his book after the fall of the USSR. As a former guard, he attempted to justify his past behavior, not to say exonerate himself.
The last extreme long shot shows the rural desert which contrasts with their bright costumes, letting the audience feel their accomplishment of climbing King Canyon in full drag. The music in the background is a soft slow song that gets more dramatic the longer it plays finally getting at its climax when they reach the top. This music can mean that their journey was slow at the beginning but got a lot more interesting the longer they drove.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
When I watching this movie, I notice that I felt less separation from the movie. Initially I could not find a reason for that but, soon after I realize that the camera is not static but it wobbling slightly. In most movie, camera does not move and it creates the frame. In the other hand, this movie’s handheld camera type of camera works imitate the human eyesight feeling and make people feels like to experience the event in a movie as a one of the character. In this perspective, do not explain too much about the detail is emphasizing this experience. Consider these things, I really excited and enjoyed couple of scene which are the running through battle field and engaging to the baby. In the every day world, both scene is pretty rare to experience. For the battle field scene, majority of the people have avoiding to be in there so that is rare. The engaging to the baby experience is quite normal event for most people and of course it is grate experience but, in this movie setting, baby is extremely rare and seeing baby is truly miracle event. To emphasize and provide this miracle event, this camera work is perfect to apply.
In “Vigil”, a man is lying by another dying man’s side and describing the appalling sights he senses. While he is pinned down “facing the full moon / his bloated hands / permeating / my silence /”, the narrator feels has has never “been / so / attached to life” (Ungaretti 7-10, 12-14). This is extremely disturbing as when one feels closer to life ‘s system as a whole, it means they are ready to take drastic measures to either forget, or undo the experience. Nevertheless, the situation is no less frightful in All Quiet on the Western Front. The imagery Erich Maria Remarque provides is extremely haunting, as it is an accurate representation of the horrors seen at war. When Paul Baumer sees people lying dead, he says “Their sharp, downy, dead faces have the awful expressionlessness of dead children” (Remarque 130). Baumer can envision the expression of dead children without seeing them, and relate them to what he is currently experiencing, which is a true indication of a sense uncontrollable by human
The dialogue Crew has written between “old pa” and his grandson “we got chopped to bits at ypres” (Memorial, 1999) shows the brutal and slaughterus experiences “old pa” went through during the First World War. By Tan using the colour blue in “old pa’s” eyes, he accentuates the saddness, therefore showing a message that it is not only a book that is able to tell a story but it can also be told through people’s eyes. This allows the audience to connect on a deeper level with the realism and historical past of the war, as well as the past life expeiences in the grandfather’s stories. The use of the army camouflage colours in the illustrations is also a strong tool in suggesting to the children that this book has a direct connection to the army, soldiers, wars and battles. The images of the people, the soldiers and the women also add to the historical reality of the content of the
In this movie, much emphasis is placed on simplicity, spontaneity and directness, so we can focus on the true story without being distracted from the normal every day routines these characters have. A degree of realism is achieved in this movie, because the fact remains that Ben is an alcoholic, although he does drink in extremes where the normal human being would be unconscious, and Sera is a prostitute, so the intense situations and decisions in this movie are reasonably depicted. One of the first scenes is an extreme long shot of the city of Las Vegas, because this sinful city was very carefully chosen as the setting of the story to preserve realism. Full shots are often used to show the protagonists on their daily routine, such as when Ben goes shopping at the supermarket for liquor. Figgis mainly used multiple shots to emphasize the two protagonist’s interactions with each other. The two shot and the over-the-shoulder shot were used often to build a sit...
...s; and then the gigantic niceness of the detail that pictures the mountains, pulled up by the tops, coming bottom side up toward them. In between we are forced to look away, to separate ourselves from the action, and see it as a spectator, not as a participator. In the grand finale of physical ridicule the rebels are again left exposed to laughter by the interrupted point of view. Never do they appear so ridiculous, not even as a timorous flock, as when they are caught isolated between the before and the behind.
Due to the film’s quality and interest it became an award winning film. The film had excellent sound effects such as the battle scenes. The image quality was also outstanding; it used many different angles to depict the actor to make you feel involved in the scenes. In the action scenes the most common viewpoint used was a close up shot which allows the audience to see and feel the intensity of the scene. The second viewpoint mostly used was a tracking shot due to the actors c...
Therefore, it is possible to notice how the cinematography, the mise-en-scene and the editing are used to resemble the peculiarities of the space in which the actions are taking place. For instance, the first part is characterized by long pan or tilt shots, the camera is steady but still manages to follow the characters actions. The editing points to the linear occurring of the events. Also, the characters and the objects are usually methodically placed in the scene. All of the elements are used to convey the rigid organization, efficiency and control typical of the military environment. On the other hand, in the second part, there are usually shorter shots and steadicam shots. The camera is free to investigate the space of action. Here, the editing is used to create a dynamic perception of the events. In this way Kubrick is able to bring in the spectators’ minds the chaotic reality of the war. Moreover, colors become another tool to communicate to the audience this sort of split within the film. In fact, after Pyle’s death the viewer can notice how those metallic and cold colors, that are present at the beginning of the film, shift into wormer colors. It is actually through Pyle’s suicide that the the spectator gets this switch. In that scene the dark red blood stains, and ideologically violates, the cold white tiles of the bathroom. This film is also different on
He shots almost every significant and dramatic scenes in long shots. By doing that, the alienation and misery of the consequences of the war laid down in the purpose of the film. His aim of use that is constructing uninterrupted integrity in which transition from present to his memories. Angelopouslos strews a lots of great and effective scenes to reflects the mood of the film which means also the atmosphere of the Balkans, sadnees, aloneless and