Mr. L's Limbo: Analysis

Mr. L's Limbo is a short film made by an AS Moving Image Arts student, which follows a man dealing with the judicial and mental consequences of drink driving. From a vague view of the film, its a psychological horror with dark and gritty elements permeating through the 3 minutes. The title sequence already begins to strike fear into the viewer through the aural effect of the heartbeat effect and the eerie coin spinning in the void.

 As the film begins, the director continues to inject anxiousness into the viewer. It begins with an over the shoulder shot of a man, looking across at another man, standing awkwardly in front of him. the claustrophobic, uneasy room makes the viewer feel uncomfortable, with the visual effect of not being able to see their faces or know what the setting is being significant, as one of the great human fears is the fear of the unknown. It then cuts to a medium side-on shot of the two, sitting down. The extreme lighting creates odd shadows that become very eerie. Furthermore, Some frames were blacked out or filled with a strange looking man during post production, creating a sense of confusion in the viewer.
It then begins to do quick cuts to a separate scene, where the confused man is locked in a cage, like he is currently describing in the film at this time. It is inferred that he is talking about a memory, as he is using past tense. This further adds to the sense of claustrophobia that was being created through the first setting, creating an eerie mise-en-scene. Looking at the mise-en-scene in more detail, it's clear to see the director was going for a horror film, through the mutilated bodies lying around and the jump-scare utilized through another character. during this scene, the director also utilizes several eye-line match shots, to convey that the man in the cage is just as confused as the audience about his surroundings. During the jump-scare, he uses sound effectively, as he amplifies the diegetic sound of screams and rattling of chains juxtaposed with the silence before hand. Although we are not using any jump-scares in our film, I can still see the importance of sound and how it can effect your film.
The director also shows the mans psychological trauma, as it shows the hand of a little girl on the interrogator's shoulder. This is very effective as it gives us an initial insight into the mans mind, and tries to convey to the audience that there is something wrong with him mentally. As the film progresses. Later on in the film, we can see the man, sitting at a laptop, watching this video. It is a different location, most likely his house, but it does not take away from the guilt this man obviously feels as shown by his facial expressions here. Furthermore, a woman with a knife approaches him from behind at the end of this scene. It's ambiguous whether this woman is real or if she's a metaphor for karma.

The director also does well to induce fear inthe viewer through the use of an unknown character who features in a single scene in the film and also injected into single frames throughout the film. This man, who looms over the main character of the play serves as an antagonist with the interrogator. His costume consists of a dirty, bloody undershirt, as well as shoulder high clear gloves and a long metal rod. Through the visual aspect of this character, he already induces fear. Furthermore, through the aural effect of the dragging of the rod slowly across to ground, tension is also built adding an aspect of suspense and anxiousness to this scene. This suspense comes to it's fever pitch when the man stabs the other, Leaving the visual effect of the blood on the ground and on his gloves, which is visually moving and disturbing, yet shown excellently.
The ending of this film is done very well through both the filming, quality of acting and post production of it. The interrogator beings to laugh manically at the man, and a little girl (presumably the one he killed) crawls out from behind him onto the table. This works well visually as it is not difficult to understand the meaning. This is a metaphor for his guilt, and the jump-scare effect of the girl screaming in his face shows his fear at the thought of the dead girl. In the final moments, it replays what has happened in the film using quick shots, which are aligned with the non-diegetic sound of a ticking clock. This could also be metaphorical for time running out in the mans life, and builds suspense further. 

The final scene repeats the first; the man stumbling into the interrogation room. This infers the movie has came full circle, proving the title "Mr. L's Limbo." Overall, I think this movie has done well to capture the difficult genre of horror and it has inspired me to go on and think of more ideas for River.




Here's the short film itself:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Life of Death: Analysis

Image
The life of death is an interesting spin on the idea of the grim reaper, as it begins with him dying, then shows flashbacks of his life. I thought this was a good film to analyse, as it is similar to ours in that it takes the idea of death and the afterlife and distorts it to create their own idea for a film. The movie begins by showing several tranquil long shots of inner city New York, setting up the theme and location of the film. The first establishing shot is shown which starts in parallel to the non-diegetic soundtrack, which is both happy yet tranquil.This opening scene is filmed in the morning time, which could be the director trying to convey hope or new life. This is heavily ironic as it is juxtaposed to the theme of death that the audience assumes through the title. Living beings, humans and dogs alike, are shown in his opening scene, which further conveys the theme of life which juxtaposes the character of death.    As the scene progresses, we see death, ...
Read more

The Heist: Analysis

Image
Narrative is created to appeal and entice an audience and to maintain their interest. From the start of The Heist, the audience is already enticed by the short due to several narrative techniques and codes. At the start of the short when the 2 guys are pitching their idea, the film seems to be of a normal structure and chronological code, as they are stating what they want to do where they want to do it. It is when they begin telling the man how they want to do it when the film switches to an anachronic structure, as the viewer sees the different back-stories of every character, each weirder and more detailed than the last. Since the genre of this short is comedy, it is significant that it doesn’t strictly follow Todorov’s narrative theory, as this be seen as comedic. There is an equilibrium, yet it is becomes more disrupted as the film progresses. At the end of the film, the equilibrium is at it’s most disrupted, due to the paradoxical image presented. The equilibrium is not rein...
Read more