What are the technical aspects that we don’t perceive when we see a movie?

“Children of men” is a film of the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón filmed in 2006 and based on the novel “The Children of Men” of P. D. James.
This film situated in the context of the year 2027 is about the human being in the edge of the extinction, men have lost the capacity to procreate and there is no reason of why all women of the planet have become sterile. At the same time, the entire world trembles in fear when an eighteen years old young man dies, he was the youngest person on the earth. It was a tremendous situation of chaos. In this circumstance, Theo (Clive Owen), a disillusioned activist of London was chosen by Julian (Julianne Moore) to protect the girl most requested of the planet.

Now that we know a little of the film, I am going to analyse the following scene:

The basic elements that conforms the image are: the space, the line, the form, the tone, the movement, the colour and the rhythm.

In this sequence the space is closed, the characters are situated inside of a car, which is moving.
As we can see lines in the composition are straight lines marked by the typical highway and it shape. Nevertheless something that keeps my attention is that just at the moment when the fire car appears the road becomes curved, that symbolize certain agitation and dynamism. This is the same that happens when appears too the police car, the highway seems situated in the middle of the hill, for that reason the inspected car appearance provokes the sensation of a danger situation.

It is used a soft lighting, it is diffuse and hardly ever the excessive contrast exist. It permits to keep the attention on the details. It is likable and it reduces the dramatic part of the scene. However the predominant colours are the ones that are in the dark tone like dark green, gloomy grey and the orange colour of the fire. These colours are characterized for transmit strong emotions, are serious and sober. In general these type of cold colours make the environment more small and distant.

On the other hand we have to talk about the movement, in this case we have two types. On one hand the movement of the characters and on the other the movement of the camera. We can't say much about the movement of the characters because they are in a static position inside the moving car, even so the woman sitting on the co-pilot seat moves her body looking at Theo, but this movement it isn´t too much relevant. What we can surely stand out is first the movement of the crowd getting closer to the car in a chaotic way and secondly the motorway driving in front of it, giving a total draft to the scene provoking action. The movement of the camera is really simple, it is placed inside of the car, therefore at the beginning doesn´t exist movement more than the zoom shot towards each character when they talk. When the action starts the camera makes a panoramic horizontal movement to capture all the views outside the car.

The rhythm is one of the characteristics of the audio-visual element more important for the story. At first the rhythm is associated with the time and the number of the shot used in one sequence. At the same time the rhythm is established by the sound and the movement, in this sequence at the beginning is slow, while the characters have a calm conversation and there is a background music, the car follows a straight direction and there is a sensation of normality. When the car with the fire appears the rhythm changes, we can hear shouts outside and inside the car, this moves going in reverse, it transmits a danger and stress sensation.

In this sequence predominate the narrative shots since only we see the characters from the waist up. It is used to stand out the action of the characters without mattering the environment. For that reason the expression has great value.

A first shot appears when the motorist shoots the woman sitting on the co-pilot seat and the man covers her wound with his hands, with the nearness of the shot the director pretends to highlight the feelings and the emotions of the characters. To finish I can say that of all the angles it predominates over the normal one, at the height of the characters look and we could say too that it exists a little depth of field, only we can see clearly the objects situated near the principal object.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_MysJsca0s
2. Dargis, Manhola, December 25, 2006. " Apocalypse Now, but the Wasteland a Child Is Given" [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/movies/25chil.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]
3. Ebert, Roger. "Children of men". [ http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/children-of-men-2007]