-
Enemy. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. E1 Films. 2013.
Warning – Pictures of Spiders, if you hate spiders, stop reading now! Final Warning! The final scene of Enemy is the culmination of the spider motif that runs throughout the movie. Adam/Anthony has spent the whole film trying to resolve the two sides of himself, the cheat who only cares about himself and the man who tries…
-
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Dir. Mike Newell. Warner Bros. 2005.
In Mike Newell’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, dragons are portrayed as symbols of the overriding danger that follows Harry throughout the film. This is made particularly apparent during Harry’s chase with a Hungarian Horntail in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. In this scene, Newell’s use of both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds…
-
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Dir. Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. EMI Films. 1975.
This iconic scene fully exemplifies the film’s absurdist representation of the violence of the crusades, particularly the disproportionate violence of the Western invaders. It explores this using the similarly lopsided power-dynamic of the animal-human relationship, the surreal treatment of which exposes the arbitrary hegemony, and divine mission of the white Christian crusaders as a lie.…
-
28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.
You wouldn’t expect one of British cinema’s most poignant and idyllic moments to lie in the centre of a post-apocalyptic horror film, yet it does. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later cuts in the melancholy scene at its centre, with four wild horses providing respite for the film’s central four characters by subverting the film’s primary genre…
-
Bambi. Dir. David Hand. RKO Radio Pictures. 1942.
The story of Bambi has captured the hearts of many ever since its release back in 1942. The main character, Bambi is a sweet, newborn mule deer when he first graces the screen, and earns the love of many with the lovely antics shared by him and his friends. The most memorable scene however, is…
-
The Wolf of Wall Street. Dir. Martin Scorsese . Paramount Pictures. 2013.
The Wolf of Wall Street is a biographical dark comedy that follows the life of criminal stock broker, Jordan Belfort. The presence of animals in the film draws attention to human-animal relationships and their differences. More specifically, this scene uses a goldfish to highlight these differences, as well as the film’s message about the greed and…
-
Frozen. Dir. Adam Green. Anchor Bay Films. 2010.
Adam Green’s dramatic thriller Frozen features the return of the wolf to terrorise three friends who become stranded on a ski lift in a New England ski resort. The wolf’s homecoming becomes symbolic, in light of Robin Wood’s definition of the horror film monster, of the ‘deadly return of all that a culture both represses and oppresses’[i].…
Got any book recommendations?