The Most Beautiful Man in the World

The Most Beautiful Man in the World

The short film explores a number of issues which raise awareness about various ideologies; a number of binary oppostions surface and some complex ones. Throughout the short, the issue of neglect is continuously represented through the lack of stimulation and care the child receives. A number of different ideologies surround this issue, one being that children should not be left alone for long periods of time with only technological devices such as TV for entertainment. This is a more binary view, other views can be taken from this issue that are more complex and worldly, such as the ideology that other members of the family should take turns in stimulating and caring for the children in a family, or that children should be left alone for periods of time in order for them to learn independently how to entertain themselves.

The issue of neglect is represented through the technical elements, mise-en-scene, camera, sound and editing. After a number of the film’s opening credits the diegetic sound of a television can be heard displaying violent sounds, such as guns shooting and people hitting, then a close up panning up a young girl yawning with the expression of boredom on her face is shown. The girl is wearing dirty clothes, which suggests that she is not being looked after properly and lives in an unclean environment. The film then goes on fading to a black screen and then fading back to the girl lying down on the floor with a dog sitting next to her. The film then fades to black again and then fades back to show the girl in a close up in a darkly lit room with only the light of a television flickering on the girls face as she watches the device. Voices are overheard diegetically talking about hair and expensive braids; then again the film fades to black.

Throughout this part of the film the television is on and being used to stimulate the girl, through the diegetic sound of the television in the beginning and the flickering light of the screen on the girl’s face. When the girl is shown in the voice over shot the fact that the room is lit darkly and the only source bringing light is the television screen communicates that this device is the only source of stimulation the girl has at current. The close up of the girl yawning together with the expression of boredom on her face shows that the character is bored and that the technological stimulation she is receiving is not that stimulating to her. The editing between the two shots (fading to black, fading up) is used to explore how drowsy and sleepy the character is, showing that the girl does not receive much stimulation. The close up shots of the girl communicates her feeling of entrapment in the house, throughout these shots the character looks bored and motionless communicating a sense of inertia.

Diegetic sound of a telephone ringing is then heard, the screen then fades up from black to show the girl lying on the floor with the dog sitting next to her again. The film then cuts to a wide shot on the floor, the diegetic sound of a person talking on the phone is heard, the voice is very weak and young sounding, suggesting how the character is feeling. The girl then gets up from the

floor and walks to window and looks out. The house in the wide shot looks dirty and unclean, there is a rusty heater, off coloured carpet, sofa/chairs and curtains which none match to each other and the television is in bad condition. These mise-en-scene aspects along with the costume design mentioned above suggest that the parent and child are low economically.

There is only one parent in the house throughout these and previous shots which could justify why the child is suffering some sort of neglect and why the two characters are low economically.  The wide shot of the girl communicates the isolation and low-importance the character has, together with the fact that throughout the short film the girl is never named shows that the girl has little significance to anyone in the storyline. This also brings to attention the issue of social-alienation and disenfranchisement. The dog is shown in two shots of the film so far, always sitting next to the girl showing that animal is a sort of guardian, replacing the parental role of her father and mother who are mainly absent.

The film then cuts to a wide shot of the girl outside riding her bicycle.. There are no signs of civilisation or neighbourhood, bringing forward the issue of vulnerability. The dog stands watching the girl in front of the house, showing again the guardian/ parental role the animal has to the character.The diegetic sound of bird is then heard which draws the girls attention back to what she was looking at previously, showing that the bird song was stimulating the girl through her audible senses. The camera then produces a pan and tilt over to show what the girl is looking at; we then see a field and a busy road out in the distance of the shot. This scene shows that character’s child imagination, by getting attracted to dangerous places and appearing curious to the new stimulation she is receiving. The film then cuts to medium shot of the girl looking out towards to field, the character then walks up to a fence while the camera pans her movement. The character then walks along the fence whilst dragging her hand along the fence’s top spikes, the girl then goes out of the camera’s frame and reappears again in the field, quickly walking into the unknown territory.

The film then goes on to show a steady camera medium shot of the girl walking with her arms spread wide going up and down, this shows that the character is now free and open. We then see a series of jump cuts of the girl exploring the new territory, such as  
 
 

a medium shot of the girl kneeling in the grass feeling it with her face and hands, then a close up of the girls hand running through the long grass as she is walking. Throughout these jump cuts the diegetic sound of the bird song is heard at certain times, each time catching the girl’s attention and encouraging her to explore further into the freedom she has found. There is now a sense of timelessness, before when the girl was inside time was running into time loss, whereas now time is being lost in a positive way not in the same delusion as before.

The film then goes to a worms eye view close up of the girl poking a stick into water, only the diegetic sound of the water being touched from underneath is heard. This shows that the girl is entirely focused and pulled in with the actions she can now do. The diegetic sound of a dog whining is then heard, the girl then stops what she is doing and turns to look in the direction the sound has come from. The film then cuts to a medium shot of the girl looking, she then gets up and walks over to the sound she has just heard. We then see a medium shot panning up from the dog to a man’s face. The man is not wearing a top and looks wildly. There is now a loss of innocence in the audience as this can be seen as not a positive thing but rather as something dangerous. The fact that the dog has trust in the male character then leads to the girl trusting him too, as the dog has a sort of parental role over the girl.

The film then cuts to a close up of the girl smiling where she says her first and only line of dialogue in the whole short film. There are then a series of extreme close ups of her mouth and nose and then her hands when the man gets a beetle off of her. These jump cuts and the only line of dialogue combine to show the stimulation the girl is now receiving from someone, she has now experiencing all 5 senses being stimulated which she hasn’t had in some time.

The film then cuts to a wide shot of the girl, the man, the field and the road, this shot establishes the freedom world the girl is currently in and shows all the features of it that make it that way for example the field with the grass and the man with the stimulation of the 5 senses. The camera then cuts to a close up of the man’s face and then to the side of a woman’s face. The woman is automatically assumed to be the girl’s mother; as she does not panic or get the man away from her child this communicates that she knows the man and that he will do no harm to her child. This also suggests that the man in the field is estranged father figure to the young girl. The camera then shows the girl in a medium shot looking to towards the woman and then back toward the man. The girl is then shown in a hand held medium shot running toward the woman, the film then cuts to a darkly lit hall way with the girl and the woman slamming the front door and walking off.

Throughout the film the main representational focus is on age; this can be looked at from two perspectives with both the young girl’s boredom and need for stimulation and the young, single mothers struggling, both emotionally and financially, being represented. The girl’s mother’s age is being represented through the narrative storyline of the mother being a young, single parent who is struggling with money worries and who is also finding it difficult to care for her child and give her what she needs; this is a fairly stereotypical representation of the mother as society often criticises and has strong views about young, single mothers not being able to care for their children correctly. Class and status also plays a role in the representation of the mother as we can tell from the run-down mise-en-scene of the house and narrative of the story that she is from a lower class family.

One of the key themes throughout the film is that of Freedom vs. Imprisonment; this theme relates not only to the child and how she is trapped inside her house but also relates to the mother being trapped with the child while the father is free and allowed to do what he wants. This is a representation of gender as women are usually the ones to care for children when partners split while men are able to live their own lives; this is shown again through the close-up shots and dark, depressing lighting used in the interior scenes compared to the wide shots and bright, airy lighting used in the exterior scenes where both the mother and father feature respectively. The costume of who we believe to be the girl’s father also represents his freedom as we see him shirtless, the connotations of this being that the man is free and liberated.