Homework

Maria Full Of Grace
Joshua Marston
2005
Drama/Thriller/Crime
Ecuador


At the start of the film their is diagetic music of crickets and doors slamming, this automatically helps set the scene. The image we are shown as a spectator is that of a house higher then the camera it is not the nicest of houses, this also helps create and set the atmosphere and scene to the whole film. There are people walking towards the camera from the house, this can arise suspicions and questions in our minds. For example who are they? What are they doing? Are they important? Etc. Also their is very little lighting, it is dark outside and their is only the portch light on so the people are silhoutted and you can’t see the scene around the house.

Then their is a noise of a vehicle and it the image cuts people standing at a bus stop, two of the women are in our focal point, one women is wearing a leather jacket and as her hair in a plaite, the woman standing next to her is wearing a a sports jacket of some kind and a scarf and also has her hair in a plaite. Because both women have a plaite in their hair this could show that they are linked somehow, which starts the establishment for characters.

The camera angle is very much in line with their eyes but at the side of them. The bus that we heard earlier comes back and the women with the leather jacket leaves the other women and gets on the bus with the other people who seem to have no contact with her. The lighting is always very low lit and dark and dingy this creates the scene and sets up an atmosphere.

Then as the women steps onto the bus, their is non diagetic music being played, and then it cuts to the women in the scarf at the bus stop and shows us her from her side again but this time you also see the area where she is standing, which is very low lit, quite slum like. Then when the bus moves away, the scene gets cut into a view of mountains and trees and then into the city. This creates the setting of the scene perfectly, all the way so far their has been very little colour used this can show the mood of the characters and the way that the director [Joshua Marston] wants us to maybe empathasise with the characters. Then it cuts to a tracking shot out of the view of a window, which i as a spectator assume is that of the lady in the leather jacket that got on the bus and this shot shows the view of the city and mountanious areas.

The scene being mountanious and then slum like could mean that the characters can be beautiful at times and natural like a mountains and then they can switch and turn into a character that is uncontrollable like the slum.