This emotional stirring short film is set around the Christmas festive season, during the late 1970’s and it focuses on a Scottish working class family. Their lives seem to struggle through a grim and gritty outlook, which is enhanced by a very bleak home atmosphere. The story through its entire duration is mainly reflected from a child’s point of view, which depicts a child’s innocence through their mannerism and hopefulness, but yet addresses the issue of confusion she encounters.
The film commences with a close up shot of an adult male’s bodily parts shining his shoes, as this shot begins to reverse its zoom ,a young child’s legs are shown running and dancing around excitedly and she can be heard singing the song ‘Jingle Bells’. The diegetic sound of her mother’s voice moaning in the background can also be heard, but this character is not shown. The diegetic sound of a classic Christmas song also can be heard in the background. From the first few seconds of this opening scene it can be established from the composed shots and diegetic sounds that both characters are going to a festive celebration. However, this notion is interrupted with the following editorial cuts, which depict an additional young character, again filmed with a close up shot displaying an arm and a hand. This particular character confirms our realism of the season in question, as he pours sugar into a small toy car and persists to play with it, as if the car is driving in the snow. There is a metaphorical theme to suggest the pureness of the snow depicts his innocence. When the toy car crashes at the end of this shot, you can assume all is not as it seems as it ends on an aggressive note. These entire close up shots, conjure up the feeling of intimacy and portray a peep through the key hole into the way the family personally live.
As the editorial sequence progresses, a viewing audience is shown a close up shot of the adult male figure drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. This shot depicts his class and status as working class and the shot also gives us a slight glimpse of the era this short is representing. The bright and colourful 1970’s retro wallpaper reflects happiness, but this is in contrast to the negativity the male’s wife peruses upon him; as she clearly is not amused by his kiss as a way of thanking her for handing him his suit. This follows a quick cut shot showing the young male playing again with his car in the sugar, this time more aggressively than before. This shot is highlighting the fact that he is clearly not happy and it is reflecting the representation of age and possibly neglect.
The frame shot of the excited female child getting ready to go out displays her acting out the part of Dorothy from the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’, by saying ‘There’s no place like home.’ This is suggesting that her home is her safe haven, where she feels safe. However, it is established when the two children vacate the home with their father, it was the girl’s way of assuring her mother, she will be coming back. Back in the home the boy declares to his mother that he clearly does not want to go with his father and it is through a close up shot of this character’s face that depicts his reluctance to go with his father to the Christmas party. As the boy downheartedly exits the front door, the dull lighting casts a negative feel of uncertainty, which indicates his bond with his mother is greater than the bond he shares with his father. The mother then closes the door and as the camera quickly pans to the window, an audience is shown her staring quite emotionlessly out of the window with the dark interior reflecting the natural light from outside. This shot is depicting her unhappiness and concern with the situation. There is then a short quick cut of blankness to suggest a change of scenery and a short passing in time.
The film continues with a wide still frame shot of the boy in the forefront and the dad with his daughter in the distance. We are then shown the dad twisting his daughter around and this action is accompanied by the sound of ice cream chimes in the distance; before they exit the frame. The young male makes no attempt to catch up with them and he crosses the road widely to maintain his distance. This shot is enhancing the distance between the relationship, the young male has with his father. The diegetic sound of cars in the background becomes more apparent when the young male is left in the frame on his own, which helps to show his loneliness and this is in contrast to the happiness his sister is projecting.
The next shot a viewing audience is shown is a close up of a disused and deserted railway track and as this shot pans along, we can see the father giving his daughter a piggy back and the boy in the distance, behind them. For a brief couple of seconds the boy is shown out of view; hidden behind the father. This shot is now increasing an audience awareness of how distant both the boy and father are towards one another.
The father and his two children are soon joined by a woman with two children that are of similar age to that of the father’s two children and it is evident that the father is completely familiar with both the woman and the children. There is a frame shot that shows all six characters and as the first little girl looks at the second little girl, she says to her brother “Look at the clothes they are wearing, they look like tramps!” and her brother replies “She looks like you!” There is then a few close up, editorial cuts that show the father talking to the mother of the other two children and the emphases is about money. As the father goes to touch the woman’s hair, she quickly pulls away to avoid his attention. This shot is depicting her unhappiness towards him as he had given her less money than she had originally anticipated.
These few editorial cuts are dividing the characters class and status, mainly through the costume design. The first little girl is wearing a frilly party dress, while the second little girl is wearing what I would consider to be her school uniform. Also the woman is dressed very casually, whilst the mother at home was shown smartly wearing high heeled shoes and stockings. This would also suggest that the man puts more money into the family he is living with.
An audience is then shown a tracking shot of the first little girl, calling to her dad repeatedly “Who are they?” Her father ignores her question and continues to walk on, allowing his children to trail behind him. The two girls then converse friendly to one another, and we can clearly establish that this is the first time they have all met up together. The boys seem to acknowledge each other through facial expressions, but remain completely silent, this could suggest that they have met before and only accept the situation, because it has been forced upon them. The scene, could also explain the toy car episodes and why the first young male was portraying frustration and anger. As they all continue to walk along the bleak railway track, this notion of anger is further identified to be evident, when the boy in question throws a stone at his father’s back.
At the end of their journey they all go into a rundown hall that, in its entirety is in need of a desperate lick of paint. The cheap Christmas decorations along with all the mise-en-scene allows us to acknowledge the fathers social element, along with his class and status. The loud diegetic sound of party music bounces around the hall as children of various ages charge around. The father character gets, himself a beer and goes to sit with other fathers, who are heavily drinking and smoking. The theme here can suggest depression associated with poverty and possible alcoholism. As there are no mothers present, this would depict that many of their relationships are under stress or alternatively it could be said that the club is a working man’s only social club and it has put on a Christmas party for their members, children.
The following editorial sequence of quick cuts are portraying chaos and energy, that the children in the hall are experiencing and the hand held camera movement becomes more wobbly as the cuts pick up pace to indicate a sense of drunkenness between the adults. At first an audience is shown Santa dancing merrily with the children and then he is shown drinking a pint of beer! This particular symbol is a ruining image of Santa from a child’s point of view and therefore the aforementioned themes now seem quite apparent.
As the music begins to fade, the first little girl is surprised to see the second little girl sitting on her father’s lap. She immediately displays a possessive and jealous attitude towards her by repeatedly stating ‘That’s my daddy!’ The two little girls then begin to have a scrap fight and when the father has torn them apart the second girl declares that the father is also her daddy! The first little girl is then left in an array of emotions from feeling disbelief, confused, annoyed and even betrayed, as her father does not answer her question about the other girl’s identity and why she is insisting that her father is also hers. Instead an audience is shown him drinking his beer and a close up shot depicts his priority even further as he reaches to an empty cigarette box, in a desperate attempt to retrieve a cigarette. These shots are indicating that to make the problem go away, he is relying heavily on the drink and cigarettes, to avoid answering the question he is faced with.
The final scene shows this young fragile child in a completely different light depicting her bleak sense of dismay what her future could possibly have in store for her. The mise-on-scene is filmed darker to create this bleak atmosphere. Although feeling insecure, she still competes for her father’s undivided attention by holding onto one of his hands, and she desperately tries to hurt the other girl’s hand, indicating that she does not want, an associated friendship with her. This is in contrast, to the obvious happy time, when both of the girls were holding each other’s hands, as they attempted to jump over the train tracks prior to arriving at the hall.
The train tracks within this short can now metaphorically represent the distance between the two families. Moreover it could be suggested that each of the two families dwellings, is where you would find a station, with the father figure symbolising the train, travelling backwards and forwards between each dwelling.
The final still frame shot shows, the first young female leave her father’s hand and run a few paces behind him. Facing the other two children walking away with their mother, she slowly picks up a stone, but feebly lets it drop close to her feet. This shot is conveying her anger, like the shot when her brother threw a stone at her father’s back, but in contrast she thinks better of it.
There are a lot of elements of representation in this short film such as age, gender, class, status and regional identity. Age is a key issue as the story’s theme is seen and interrupted through the eyes of the first young girl who is obviously; totally unaware she had a half-sister. If the girls were any older then more serious implications could possibly arise, such as inflicting emotional conflictions at each other and that would blow the entire film out of context. However, if the girls were a lot younger, the need to confront the situation might not have been necessary, as both of the girls could have shared their fathers lap. The reason, I assume that the two boys did not converse was that, although they were not comfortable with the situation; they both respected each other’s position and they had previously known about their father’s double life. Although both boys were on the side line from the editorial scenes after meeting, their presence symbolizes that the father has two separate families.
Although this film has no real plot or motive, morals can be questioned. Why were the girls placed in this situation without being told of each other’s existence or eased into a situation together more maturely? As this film is emotionally constructed, it probably would not have had the same impact or lost its entire authenticity.
<< Short Film Analysis - Contents
