Hi it would be greatly appreciated if my essay could be critiqued and markd of 10? Im also open to criticim and new ideas that i could include to improve the essay.
How do features such as animation and other imagery in Look Both Ways convey the often frightening pace and confusion of modern life?
Sarah Watts’s contemporary Australian film Look Both Ways is quite unique in that it relies on the visual and conceptual architecture of the film to convey the often terrifying pace and uncertainty of modern life. The film pays careful attention to detail with a significant amount of it story communicated through the detail of its images rather than through words or movement of its actors. In particular the editing and stylistic techniques such as animations, imagery and flashback montages are successful in creating a sense of uncertainty, unpredictability and change. The film is generally made up of a large number of very quick edits, which give the viewer a large number of associations to take in. This kind of editing is an effective way to give a sense of emotional confusion.
Watt utilizes animated sequences to lay bare the internal thoughts of Meryl rather than relying on more traditional tools such as facial expression and explanatory dialogue. The considered position of the animated sequences served to neatly demonstrate what Meryl is thinking during an intense moment. Some of the animations we see are of Meryl being run over by a car, strangled by a stranger, train falling on hers as it comes around the bend and eaten by a killer shark. Similarly Nicks craft as a photographer allows his inner thoughts and fears to be presented as photographic and film montages. For example when Nick is diagnosed with cancer, he immediately sees images of him as a child, adult, playing cricket and staying with family. This is a filmic representation of ones life ‘flashing before their eyes’ during times of extreme crisis or threat. Here Nick articulates the frightening pace and confusion of modern life that is triggered by his cancer diagnosis that forces his to contemplate his own mortality. Once certain of his life his is now unsure of what the future holds. These techniques keep dialogue to a minimum while conveying the characters inner turmoil in detail. The animations and photomontages of Meryl and nick respectively emphasize the contrast between outwardly coping characters and their internal dilemmas, confusion and feeling. Watt uses the subjective inner experiences of Nick and Meryl to portray the uncertainty and unpredictability in life.
Sarah Watt deliberately distracts the focus of the viewer to impart a sense of emotional confusion but also to give a sense of the whirring of the charters troubled minds. For example the cricket match is poignant because I reveals that even when Nick is an abyss of despair there are other concurrent lives that are euphoric. It reveals that the world does not drown in the nihilism that can be triggered in response to a cancer diagnosis. Whilst this is happening the natural cycle of life is quietly played out to us in the background. Anna weighs a newborn baby, a wedding takes place behind the cricket match and a hearse with a coffin in it passes Nick. These quick edits often replicate the frightening pace of modern life. Furthermore, Watt uses recurring images to impart information in an economical, visual way. For example to create the passage of time, the image of wheeling birds is shown against the darkening sky of evening, the pastel sky of morning, the clear blue of a hot day and he threatening grey of an approaching storm. The flock of birds flying to together also suggest that whatever the bad news might be or perceived to be that nature has a kind of permanence that human kind can never possess.
The animations and imagery are important in Look Both Ways is successful in illustrating the frightening pace of modern life but so too is the relationship between Nick and Meryl. There relationship is explored over three days as Meryl explains, ‘I met you on Friday, we slept together on Saturday, and you took me to meet your mother on Sunday’. Nick and Meryl’s relationship has developed very fast because of their obsession with death. This reveals how the proximity of death makes the experience of life more intense and concentrated and that’s why the relationship almost dies prematurely. A connection is made, they go to bed, they go to meet Nick’s mother and they nearly break up all in the space of a few days. It is evident that Sarah Watt conveys the terrifying pace of modern life through this relationship.
The editing and stylistic techniques such as the photomontages and animations of Nick and Meryl convey the passage of time and confusion of modern life. This is also shown through other imagery such as the motifs of birds and the natural cycle of life played out to us in the background. The relationship of Nick and Meryl reveals how the immediacy and ‘inevitability’ of death can make the experience of life move rapidly and seem more concentrated.
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