World cinema production: Son of Saul (Saul fia)

Genre: Drama, War.
Budget: €1.5 million/ 280 million HUF 
Stars: Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak, Gergo Farkas, Balazs Farkas.
Box office: Opening weekend (USA) $37,930 (18th December 2015)
Gross (USA) $1,776,814 (13th May 2016)
Production company: Laokoon Filmgroup, Hungarian national film fund.
Certificate: rated R for violent content, and some graphic nudity.
Marketing: The trailer anchor the setting of the film, a concentration camp around 1944. Also it introduces the audience to the narrative of the film, he tries to have a boy, who he believes to be his son, buried by a Rabbi rather than in a mass grave. There is very little dialogue in the trailer.  Holocaust films are known to be heart touching.

 


Release date: (UK) 29th April 2016
Reviews:

• The Guardian, 5 stars, A stunning, excoriating Holocaust drama. 
• The Telegraph, 5 stars, Son of Saul will leave you too numb to weep. 
• Rotton Tomatoes, 96%, Grimly intense, yet thoroughly rewarding. Son of Saul offers an unforgettable viewing experience.

Awards: 
16 awards, 2015-2017.

• Academy Award for best foreign language film 2016
• Golden Globe for best foreign language film 2016
• BAFTA for best foreign language film 2017
• Critics' Choice Movie Award for best foreign language film 2016
• Satellite Award for best foreign language film 2016
• David Di Donatello for best european film 2016
• American Cinematographers Spotlight Award 2016
• Independent Spirit Award for best international film 2016
• New Yorks Film critics best first film 2015
• Guldbagge Award for best foreign film 2017
• Polish Academy Award for best european film 2017
• Cannes Grand Prix 2015
• Vulcan Award 2015
• Robert Award for best non-american film 2017
• Gopo for best european film 2017
• Golden Pram for best feature film 2015

Reflective analysis: storyboard

I chose 'lets eat' by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for the music in the sequence to create a false sense of security, as the song does not relate to the sequence at all. This makes the audience think its going to be a cheerful sequence as the start of the sequence could be from any genre type. The mise-en-scene I used were used to show either; the person is normal (the kettle, making tea), or to pull the audience in (the bags). I used a lot of point of view shots (P.O.V.) in this, so you only see whats going on from their eyes. To show that they were point of view shots I tilted the camera slightly as this makes it seem more like its from their point of view. this did not work as well as I had hoped as it just looks like I could not work the camera well.
I originally wanted to film this but it became tedious the weather in the areas I wanted to film in wasn't good, the result of that was me and the actor were slipping on the mud a lot. An improvement that I could have done is edit the pictures at the start to look brighter to add to the false sense of security. This would also contrast with the pictures after the music stops as they would be darker.
I decided to not show the face of the character in the sequence, the intended effect of this is to draw the audience in as they would want to know who they are. I tried to do this by showing bits of their face, e.g. eyes in the car mirror, cheek when getting the shovel.
My original idea for this sequence was for it to have a linear narrative, by doing this I would have to do a cliched 'couple weeks later' so instead I decided to have a flashback of what happened to the body in the bag after you see it open. As I could not create a bag full of body parts, I had to get a picture of it off the internet. This is a disadvantage because I couldn't find one that had the same kind of environment behind, so it does not match.

Gang crime in the U.K. 2016

Gang crime in the U.K. 2016

London gangs filming themselves brutally beating and mugging teenagers to guard 'territory'

“We need to ask why somebody would want to do this in the first place,” he told The Independent. “Britain is a broken country with broken families. You’ve got ill-disciplined children in homes without an authority figure, their mums might be handling three kids. They don’t see the Britain that others see, they don’t see hope – they see a Britain where their role model is a drug dealer.”

“There has been no progress – 27,000 knife crimes last year is not making inroads. Children are carrying weapons to feel safe in their own neighbourhoods.”