Reflective Analysis for our 'Experimental' Film

For a film project I had to produce a short Experimental film, so I chose to have two halves of one whole portrayed as people. One halve is confident but dark and the other is the shy emotional but light, I played the confident half wearing all black where as Celia is wearing more colourful clothing such as a purple hoodie. I chose to film in the graveyard because is made a good setting for the idea of the fact the death awaits everyone, also the fact that the battle between them could lead to a death. I chose to make my film black and white to highlight the theme of light and dark but also to show the emotional overflow of the two halves. I also played around with the idea that the two characters/ halves are associated with life and death. The light half is associated with life and the dark side is associated with death. Also both of these things are in reach, this is shown through the extreme close up on my hands scratching the grave and the mid shot of Celia pushing the ivy away.
I decided to focus on the dream state and this is shown through the opening shot which is a extreme close up of two peoples eyes closing. I chose to do this so I could play with the idea of fighting with your unconscious and the different side of yourself. This is shown through the long shot of the two characters walking past each other and not touching but feeling the the tension between them, like a force between them. I decided to use extreme close ups to show the uncomfortable situation that this person finds themselves in while in their dream state.
But I also focused on the idea that there is fault in everyone and everything, this is shown through the mid shots of Me and Celia making weird faces to explain that these halves have their inner demons too, for example being arrogant or not being able to speak to other people.
If I was going to do this again I would have liked more planning to come up with a better idea for my Experimental film. But because I have a very literate mind, I find the surreal hard to understand and recreate.

History of Experimental Film

Definition of the ‘avant-garde’:

Rupture with Tradition: Characterised by an impulse to "make it new" and by an anti-traditionalism. A total rupture with tradition and attack on the institutions of Art and Literature within bourgeois society. A rejection of all absolute aesthetic conventions and considerations of taste. Characterised by intellectual playfulness and mystification.

Formal Subversion: Culture and its norms were viewed as an artificial arrangement to be subverted, parodied and transgressed. Shock tactics and anti-art gestures were used to shake the public out of its apathetic acceptance of outmoded values. 'Avant-garde' art decomposed old frames of reference; it values fragments, curious collections and unexpected juxtapositions - erotic, exotic, and unconscious. Spontaneous, the primitive and the irrational were prized. Breaks down barriers between conscious and unconscious and liberates the imagination bringing about new perceptions and new social relations. 

Thematic Nihilism: A general loss of faith in absolutes: God, Man, Reason, Truth, Beauty, Honour, Authority, Reason, logic, language and accepted social values were all rejected. They defined themselves in opposition to the dominant conservative forces within society often seeing themselves as aesthetic terrorists antagonistic to accepted social ideals and values.

Taken for the A2 Blog

La Jetee 

I am claustrophobic and my worst fear is to be buried alive so the whole underground things about the film upsets me. After something happened in my life and now I suffer with my nerves I am scared of the dark because my mind plays tricks on me so the black and white pictures and them being darker in the 'underground' scenes upset me. The non diegetic sounds of the heart beat was to me so piercing that it made me: grit my teeth, hold my breathe and put on completely on edge, at one point I had to look away. Also the close ups on the man in the blindfold upset me for some reason, it might be the fact that he was forced to do this thing and he cant see and it is restricting. The whispering also upset me because it was sinister. 

Un Chien Andalou