Tag: HAR: Imagination/Representation

La Haine. Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz. Canal+. 1995.

One of the most enigmatic scenes in Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, an exploration of social tensions and police brutality in the banlieues (council estates) of Paris in the 1990s, occurs the afternoon after a riot breaks out in the suburb the previous night. The sound of a hip-hop remix reverberates around the buildings, as a…

14th December 2018
Barnyard. Dir. Steve Oedekerk. Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies. 2006.

Steve Oedekerk’s Barnyard uses witty puns and gags in order to satirise the idea of the animal as a fixed definition, in that an animal can never truly be anything more than a representation of the attributes that humanity typically associates with its species.

14th December 2018
Coco. Dir. Lee Unkrich. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2017.

Helping Miguel Rivera navigate the Land of the Dead as he seeks to find his great-great-grandfather is Dante, the stray Xoloitzcuintli dog. However, when it is revealed that Dante is instead a “mythical” and “powerful” alebrije or spirit guide, this subsequently exposes a tension between his two identities. This scene in particular sees Miguel use…

14th December 2018
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…

13th December 2018
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.…

12th December 2018
Alice in Wonderland. Dir. Tim Burton. Walt Disney Pictures. 2010.

The film draws on the viewer’s knowledge of the Disney original in the tea party scene, making it a ruin of what it once was, and presenting the Hatter as even more ‘mad’. He is seen for the first time in a close up shot, slowly looking up towards the camera, vacantly staring into the…

12th December 2018
Twelve Monkeys. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Universal Pictures . 1996.

Do you want a second chance, Cole?” In other words – Do you want your body experimented upon to benefit our research again, Cole? The film cuts to a scene where Cole is injected and pinned to the time machine… or rather, torture machine. Cole never gets to answer the question – he has no…

12th December 2018
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog. MGM. 1939.

The Wizard of Oz showcases, through its many varying forms of animal representation, the ways in which filmmakers deal with the challenge of creating animal characters, and how these different methods are used to craft personality traits such as the moral essence of the character. We can see this with regards to the flying monkeys, particularly…

12th December 2018
Harvey. Dir. Henry Kosta . Universal Pictures . 1950.

In Henry Kosta’s film Harvey (1950), the simple power of the imagination, entwined with the light-hearted childish nature of the protagonist Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart) acts as a tool to undermine and distinguish the evident psychological disturbances that lie beneath the surface of the plot. Harvey, a six-foot three-and – a – half – inch tall hare,…

12th December 2018
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Dir. Chris Columbus. Warner Bros. 2002.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets utilizes horror film narratives and their depiction of monstrous animals in order to reveal a deeper complex message regarding human-animal relationships. The franchise’s reliance on Ophidiophobia acts to highlight the negative animalisation assigned to animals such as snakes, whilst the treatment of the Basilisk by humans in the film…

12th December 2018