'Identity' is an award winning short film, therefore I've decided to include it in my research. You can find it below.
There's many noises at the beginning of the film, as if there's so much going on to think about before suddenly coming to a hault, it immediately sets the atmosphere for the rest of the film as we can feel it may be intense - which is something that works well.
Another thing that works well is the way the narrative starts, once you watch the whole film and come back to watch the beginning you realise that the first minute is happening in reverse. It starts with the girl saying "today I found truth". Due to it being in reverse it appears that the girl is very insecure and upset with how she looks so she picks up a mask and puts it on and is about to go out when she realises its cracked. She falls to the floor and it is no longer broken, and she heads outside where she sits in a canteen full of others who are wearing a mask. (**Remember this for later). This is the opening.
The narrative then properly starts, from the beginning (not in reverse). We see a classroom full of masked faces learning about Plato's cave analogy, the teacher talks of a 'slave being released' and becoming enlightened. The girl's face immediately looks up as if she has taken some inspiration from this to leave the mask behind.
The bell then rings and it is time to change classes, during the girls walk through the hallway we see signs such as "this is what being beautiful looks like" with a yellow mask. We also see people changing their masks depending on which groups they're talking to, eg one girl changes from a purple mask to a red to go and talk to the red 'crew'. This is something I think everyone can relate to and understand in society. It works well because this scene ultimately gives the message away, everyone is masked during highschool or society in general, we are afraid to show who we truly are because we may not fit in, in fact, we change who we are depending on who we are talking to.
In the next scene the girl is in another class where the teacher is talking about chess. He says in the first row of chess, there are the kings and queens, those in charge of the country. He then says the second row is full of the least important characters, they are what the kings and queens use to protect themselves for their own benefit. We then see a close up of the girl holding one of these and looking at it as if she relates to it, as if wearing masks benefit the most insecure and have become a phenomena where everyone has been made to feel insignificant.
Here there are many hidden messages, the girl is likening herself to those in the second row. Everyone is just tricked into wearing these masks so that the 'Kings and Queens' of the school - the popular kids - can benefit from never being overshadowed, and then people like the girl are made to feel like they cant not wear it.
We see the girl thinking more about this issue before she has so much running through her head (which we can tell by the intensity of the music/sound effects) that she leaves the canteen and heads into the toilets where she falls and breaks her mask. (** remember the paragraph I said to keep in mind?) She realises she has broken her mask as we can see her shocked face looking at herself in the mirror. She is about to leave when she realises she can't because part of her face is showing. The girl then heads back to the mirror and slowly unveils herself where she is happier as she see's she has her own identity and says 'today, truth found me'.
I think the idea of having the beginning being a reversed version of the end is extremely clever, as the beginning shows how the idea of having a mask started - insecurities. She says here she found truth. Truth in that the mask is just to hide insecurities and fit in, when in fact EVERYONE is wearing a mask because they all want the same thing. As I have spoken about above, the dialogue in lessons is also very necessary as it is these lessons that make the girl think about taking off the mask.
The ending finishes with 'The truth found me' to show she suddenly realised what society was doing was wrong, the truth creeped up on her and she was relieved.
I think overall, the film is very clever and well done, everything used is necessary to heighten emotion and exaggerate feelings of being trapped. Feeling trapped and scared appears to be a theme in this film, as well as enlightenment by different sources as the girl looks deeper into their meaning eg, in the Plato lesson, in the hallway and in the chess lesson.
The locations used are also necessary to the narrative. The two classrooms, the hallway, the bathroom and the outside where the girl embraces who she is are the main locations (5). I also like that the only main character was the girl as it completely narrowed the focus of the film and showed us how individuals can feel on a personal level in society.
I enjoyed the clean shots, the close ups, and the shot zooming out at 1:13 as people pass by, it shows her distance to the masked world she is living in.
I will take inspiration from this video from it's shots and clever hidden meanings as I think these traits would fit well in most media products.
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