Narrative method
From the content point of view, the film can be classified as an anti-war film, and from the narrative point of view, the film can be classified as a detective film or a suspense film. In order to design the film as a suspense film, the film did not adopt an ordinary single-line narrative, but set up three plot lines. The lines of Jane and Simon and the lines of Nawa are the main two, while the lines of Nihad show less. Among them, the line between Jane and Simon is the process of searching for the truth, while the line of Nawa is the truth. The two plot lines are closely related. After the film tells a story of Nawa, it will begin to tell the story of Jane (and Simon) finding the truth. The two stories are inherited from each other and the transition is smooth, making the film interlocking and fascinating.
The specific performance is: the film begins to tell the story of Nawa from the beginning. Nawa tried to elope. After giving birth, the child was sent to the orphanage by a woman wrapped in black all over. In the same scene, after an empty shot, Jane appeared, and time and space transformed into the present. It turns out that Jane came to the place where Nawa first lived, and Jane found the school where Nawa used to study, so it was time to go back to when Nawa was studying.
In this way, the film has the flexibility to switch between the past and the present. Sometimes the transition between the two time and space will achieve the effect of subverting the audience's expectations. For example, in the scene where Simon was taken to see Zhanxiding, in the last shot we clearly saw Simon being taken in a car, and in the next shot there was indeed a gray car driving next to another black car. We would naturally I thought it was Simon going to see Zhanxi Ding, but it was Nawa who got off the bus. It was Nawa who went to see Zhanxiding. Time naturally turned back to the past ingeniously.
There are not many lines that express Nihad, but they always appear at the right time. The film starts with Nihad (of course we didn't know that he was Nihad at that time). A militant shaved his head when he was a child, and the camera showed a close-up of his heel mark. The camera moved slowly towards him, Jingbie narrowed down to the close-up of his eyes, and his eyes were staring at the camera. At this time, the background song also reached its climax. Starting with him is not only to emphasize his importance, but also to set up suspense.
After Jane and Simon learned that they were the children of Nawa's rape, and that his brother Nihad had someone else, Nihad's line appeared appropriately in line with the audience's expectations.
Perhaps in order to make the narrative of different time and space intertwined appear more organized, the film also adds subtitles to each paragraph as if it were divided into chapters. These subtitles are like clues written on post-it notes to us. Finally, we see the title of the story, which is also the title of the film—Scorched Earth—a summary of the image of the world spawned by the hatred and killing shown in the film.
Another aspect of the film's narrative ingenuity is that there are some things that the characters in the play don't know, but we do. In the film, Jane learns that her mother has been raped and gave birth to a child, thinking that the child is the older brother. In the story about Nawa, the audience knows that the child is definitely not the older brother, but may be Jane and Simon. This has the effect of influencing the mood of the audience and making the audience follow the plot steadily.
The
complex narrative method of audiovisual language is to create the suspenseful qualities of the film, so the theme and content of the film need good audiovisual language to create.
The tones of the film well set off the theme of the film. The film mainly uses white, black, blue, yellow, gray and other colors. Nawa's hometown is mainly yellow, showing a sense of depression and dilapidation, full of traces of war. Canada is mainly blue and gray, showing a gloomy and cold color. The characters also wear clothes of these colors. In the film, only two people wear colored clothes. One is a young boy who was shot by Nihad. He was wearing a red shirt and green pants. Killed for no reason. The red clothes and green trousers are a metaphor for his original living life. The film deepens the cruelty of war and violence. On another occasion, Nawa put on a red shirt, and she went to assassinate the leader of the Christian militia. She is wearing a red dress and black dress, holding a red envelope in her hand, and the camera is still fixed on her red envelope. This color symbolizes danger and violence.
The film tells the personal destiny under the background of the great era. In addition to the characters, the protagonist of the film is also the scorched earth city. The film has a lot of scenes showing Nawa's hometown. There is a wilderness with more sand and rocks, and a city with dense low-rise buildings. Some empty shots have played a role in transitions, and more importantly, they integrate the characters of the film into the environment, and the other expresses the deep sympathy and hidden worries of the suffering land and the director.
The sound design of the film is also well involved in narration and characterization. The film uses more voice-overs. In Kafaliat, the film showed that while Nawa was waiting in prison, a woman screamed horribly outside the painting. The film shows the cruelty of lynching from the side and exaggerates the atmosphere of fear.
When the Christian militia brutally killed other people in the car in which Nawa was riding and burned down the bus, the film replaced the real sound with heavy music. This sound design highlights Nawa’s psychology and expresses her at the time. Despair and anger. Later, the militiamen shot and killed the child Nawa intended to save, and the true sound of the gun was revealed. This gunshot completely pushed Nawa into the abyss of hatred.
Religious contradictions are the cause of the war in the film, and the setting and props of the film are not forgotten to be religious. The black cross worn by Nava, the white cross held by Grandma Nava, the crucifixion cross hung in the house that was attacked by the militia in Champaign, and the statue of the Virgin hung in the ward where Nurse Maika was hospitalized. Immerse yourself in a strong religious atmosphere.
In a nutshell, the film is well-conceived and meticulous, and the complex narrative methods make the film extremely observable, and the carefully designed audio-visual language expresses the content and theme of the film in place. Therefore, "Scorched Earth City" is definitely an excellent film.
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