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A film journal + 250 words analysis and discussion POST: 250-word ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION ON
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Title
Still Life
Director
Sohrab Shahid-Saless
Year
1074
Produced by
Parviz Sayyad
Distruibuted by
Co-operative Film Markers & Tele film present
Summary, Key Themes & POV
The movie starts in the quiet outskirts, and the plot unfolds slowly. The film records
every detail of the railway administrator’s life and his wife, making tea, drinking tea,
eating, cleaning up, laying on the floor, smoking, and adjusting the alarm clock… The
camera is continuously switching between the work and life scenes. The old man is a
railroad switchman. His job responsibilities are particularly simple, controlling the
iron rod manually when the car comes and leaves. It’s such a tedious job, which the
elderly stick to day after day and serve for 33 years.
The shot switched from the hut where the old man worked to the place where he lived.
In the hut, an old couple is always so quiet, doing their usual things habitually,
without any fun at all. It seems like this forever, but everything had changed when the
government notified him to retire. The old man was lost for a while, and he could not
believe that this was the truth for a long time. At the suggestion of his wife, he went to
the city to find relevant personnel for the first time in his life, hoping to get back to
work, but he could not go back to work. The last scene was the couple moving out of
the humble hut where they had lived for 30 years, the old man stared at the wrinkled
face in the mirror for a long time, and the film stopped there.
POV in the film includes First-Person and Third-Person Point of View
Form Stylistic elements
At the beginning of the movie, many extreme wide shots were used, which gave me
the feeling that the whole scene was tranquil and empty, and the protagonist was tiny
and lonely in the picture.
The director uses many close-up shots to portray the characters’ actions, such as
drinking tea, the protagonist smoking, and the protagonist’s son taking off his shoes.
Basically, two shots are used in the dialogue.
The movie’s biggest feature is the stop-motion camera, which gives me the feeling of
looking at paintings.
Notes on story of race, class, gender and sexuality
There was a scene of the officer chatting and looking at photos with someone in his
office. He talked about buying and selling land, a wealthy official relative, beauty in
the picture, and saying God bless you to the old man. The life of the old man had been
unchanged for 30 years, simple and tedious. This contrast was terrible. The life of
different social classes was different, the government system was corrupt and
incompetent, and the civilians only had a sense of powerlessness.
Qutoes
“Like narrative, point of view is a term that film shares with the literary and visual
arts. In the broadest sense, it refers to the position from which something, is seen and,
by implication, the way that point of view determines what you see”.(Corrigan,
pg46)There is a scene in the movie. The old woman looks out from the window,
watching the parting of her son and the old man; this is the first view; also, it is a
mother’s view. From another viewpoint, we looked at the old woman from the
window and then to the other perspective, at the old woman’s back from the house.
These three different points of view shocked me a lot, and they all have different
feelings.
“so far, all of these horizon line examples have been locked in two-dimensional
frames. The strong horizontal line, one-third down the screen from the top, is a good
composi-tional start, but it does not create depth. You need to establish that this XLS
captures depth in the physical world of the filmed image. To help with this goal, you
could employ an old artist’s trick called the vanishing point”Roy, pg60) In Still Life,
the most usual scene, railway, the director uses the track as the line to frame the entire
picture. The point that Railroad tracks extend to the end is the vanishing point.
Analysis:
If you are looking for a plot and story, Iranian movies are not the right choice.
For example, this “Still Life” is dull and quiet. However, people who have life
experience can see the shadow of each of us from the movie. It’s not just
showing Iran. In every village of the world, many grandparents work all their
lives and do the same work forever. Isn’t this a portrayal of their lives? For most
people, life is very singular. Every day repeats the same life. Even worse, some
people will be ruthlessly abandoned, just like the old man who worked for the
railway for 30 years in the movie. “I’ve been dismissed…” This sentence is
repeated the most in the film. It is the people’s self-sufficiency to society.
This movie is not like a movie; it is a real-life record, which contained simple life,
simple feelings, and simple existence. The man worked on a railway track for
33 years. In the end, a simple letter decided his ending. They left the house
where they lived for 33 years. Where else could they go? They might become
homeless. The end of the movie is heavy. The whole film’s rhythm is plodding,
slowly telling the protagonists’ entire life, but it massively shook the audience.
The old man in the mirror of the ending may make people think all night and
cannot sleep. Is this the ending of the masses?
The shots in the movie are handled very well, like paintings. The dead trees by
the railroad, the various lines in the lens, and the room’s blue background,
these pictures are all like artworks.
Title
Director
Year
Produced by
Distruibuted by
Summary, Key Themes & POV
Form Stylistic elements
Notes on story of race, class, gender and sexuality
Qutoes
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Tags:
gender discrimination
emotional connection
experimental filmmaker
paradoxical films
film shooting
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