Tag Archives: film

Hybridity of The Water Will Carry Us Home

Posted on by
3

The short film, The Water Will Carry Us Home, had an interesting combination of two mediums: modern film making and stop animation. This mixture of mediums made me think about the hybridity of mermaids that we have touched on quite a few times this semester, but I don’t think this was in the intention of the filmmakers. Rather, I think the combination of these two mediums allowed the filmmakers to tell a story, while also connecting it to real people and modern times. The film begins with shots of women lighting candles, with many shots focused on small details of their bodies and what they are wearing–such as the henna on their hands, the stretched ear lobes, the tattoos, the smoke from the candles. These small details slow down the film and force the audience to pay attention to these details, rather than a big picture. For instance, the henna on the hands with the eyes, which is later also seen on the boat in the stop animation portion of the film. If the shots had been wider and not focused on these details, the audience may have missed the eye on the woman’s hand. This symbol being in both parts connects these two mediums. By having modern film making sandwiching the stop animation, it first allows us to relate to something in the beginning (this looks familiar) and then brings us back to reality at the end (this is part of someone’s culture, this is a story told by these people). There is also hybridity within the stop animation. Although most parts are hand drawn and slowly moved, there are also historic documents embedded in the video that reveal the horrors of the slave ships that moved people to the United States. This is important because it shows the history behind this story. In addition, at the end, there is another woman who creates headphones out of shells and a piece of wire. This creation is a way to listen to the ocean, and is another hybrid part of this film as it combines something man made with something of nature, of the ocean. This hybrid element of this film shows the ability of man and nature to coexist, intertwined with each other, and unable to separate. 

Week 11: Horror for Whom?

Posted on by
5

Watching Emilija Skarnulyte’s short film “Sirenomelia” reminded me of found footage, a subgenre of horror movies that heavily involve cameras and employ a first-person point of view (POV), which also reminds me of why found footage movies are a thing. In found footage movies, a group of characters use cameras to record their “discovery,” which happens to be the home or resting place of a monster or a deadly nature spirit. Often, one of the members of the group will disrupt the monster’s home or break a rule, which will understandably upset the monster and give them cause to come after them. We always view the movie from the disruptor’s/enabler’s POV, but never from the monster’s POV. Perhaps the monster is going through a horror movie of their own, seeing someone disrupt their home and break their rules so brazenly.

“Sirenomelia” is an interesting short film because it feels like a found footage horror movie, but instead of being from the POV of a human exploring the decommissioned submarine base, we get it from the point of view of a “monster”–a siren. If this found footage film was made from the POV of a human, we would only get a view of the base at the beginning of the film. We’d see the mountains, the surface of the icy sea, the inside of the base, and the lonely expanse of the land. Without the siren’s POV, we wouldn’t be able to see the underwater rail and the sea life that has made its home on the metal poles holding up the base. Exploring the submarine base from the siren’s point of view essentially turns us away from our terracentrist, anthropocentric view and asks us to explore another POV that is not human and not land-based.

Midterm Discovery Assignment

Posted on by
Reply

Ana Dilan 

ECL 305 

Professor Pressman

3 March 2024 

“Poor Things”: Your New Favorite Mermaid Movie 

Satirical black comedy, a Victorian Gothic fairy tale, or a loose and surrealist retelling of Frankenstein–Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things” (2023), a film adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name, is a multifaceted story with an equally multi-faceted protagonist. Played by Emma Stone, Bella Baxter, though blatantly marketed as a Frankenstein’s-monster type of creature, possesses the curiosity and wisdom akin to the mermaids of mermaid folklore. As such, the character herself and the projection of her arc adds the film to the expansive shelf of mermaid folklore and makes “Poor Things” a mermaid movie. 

Like mermaids, Bella is a hybrid creature of sorts. She is a reanimated corpse composed of the body of an adult woman and the brain of an infant. The doctor who reassembles and reanimates her and acts as her father figure tells Bella that he pulled her body from the river, a body of water and what would be a mermaid’s dwelling place. This state of hybridity exposes not just Bella’s multifaceted nature but the nature of the men around her. Bella’s naivete is exploited by a corrupt attorney named Duncan Wedderburn, but this same character detests her curiosity and thirst for knowledge while appreciated by her father and the friends she makes. 

Bella’s appearance has very mermaid-like characteristics. The most obvious characteristic is her long black hair, reminiscent of the portrayal of many mermaids before her. Her fashion and clothing choices also set her apart from the rigid Victorian-era fashions she is surrounded by. Holly Waddington, the film’s costume designer, chose to forego the use of the corset for Bella and instead decided to dress the character in “a constant state of deconstruction,” akin to “a child dressing from a parent’s wardrobe.” (Whistles, 2024) One of the costume pieces Bella wears earlier in the film is called a lobster bustle, a piece which she wears over her clothes instead of under. This undergarment was used to give the wearer the archetypal Victorian silhouette but in this case, makes Bella look off-putting because of the order in which she wears it and because it gives her bottom half the appearance of a sea creature rather than a human’s. 

Bella takes on both a physical and symbolic journey towards self-discovery as she is taken on a cruise ship headed for Athens, a city known for its philosophers, and befriends two passengers who introduce her to philosophy. It is on the sea where she becomes more conscious of herself, the world, and its people around her. She questions societal norms and the roles of individuals in enforcing these norms, seeking to improve society by improving herself through knowledge and sharing said knowledge. Later on in the film, she also decides to follow in her father’s/creator’s footsteps to become a surgeon and even joins a socialist club. Through this, Bella invokes the traits of the Babylonian myth of Oannes and his ability to share his knowledge towards the ancient Babylonians. (Bacchilega, et. al., 3)

Works Cited

Bacchilega, Cristina. Penguin Book of Mermaids. Penguin Publishing Group, 2019. 

“In Conversation with Holly Waddington: Costume Designer of the New Film ‘Poor Things,’ on Working with Yorgos Lanthimos and the Concept behind the Captivating Costumes: Inspiration: Whistles |.” Whistles, 26 Feb. 2024, www.whistles.com/inspiration/interviews/in-conversation-with-holly-waddington-costume-designer-of-the-new-film-poor-things-on-working-with-yorgos-lanthimos-and-exploring-the-concept-behind-the-captivating-costumes.html.