The film opening I am analysing is Girl, Interrupted; a drama set in the 1960s and based on an autobiography by Susanna Kaysen. The beginning of the film starts in a dark cellar-like place with 3 known women sitting awkwardly and silently, followed by a contrast in lighting as a door is opened and light shine on some bars as some men walk in. The film is about a woman’s 18 month stay at a mental hospital in America
The first scene remains silent for half a minute, allowing the audience to understand the scene and grasp the setting before the protagonist starts narrating. The 3 women are sitting in a type of cellar and are surrounded by pipes. There is also a cat in the room with them. The setting is very cramped and suggests that the characters feel trapped in more ways than one. The close ups on the character’s faces imply that you should be aware of who they are as they are important in the film. The credits are very simple and scrawled. This messy handwriting style rules out possible genres such as chick-flick, and implies reality and facts as shown in many dramas.
The scene is interposed by another one with the action of pushing the protagonist onto a hospital trolley. This quick transition from one scene to another helps portray the genre – the quick developments and setting of a hospital radiate drama, and also puts the viewer right in on the action. There doesn’t seem to be equilibrium for very long as the date and time flick back and forth. At the beginning when the characters are in the cellar, there is a sense of equilibrium, but also the use of close ups and pans give a sense of unease to the situation and hint at a disruption. The introduction of the narration, people entering the cellar and scene change to a hospital so quickly destroys the equilibrium that there is barely time to establish it. The contrast in movement accentuates this as the actions start out quite passive and then go straight into action. This disruption is hinted at through the narrative, but the action is quite fast paced in the sense that each point made is quickly followed by another; the narrative suggesting a disruption is immediately followed by the disruption.
The visual clues given as to the character’s journey include the characters shown; they all look slightly deranged or upset, apart from the protagonist. This contrast asks the question: will the protagonist reach one of these states of mind; is that what lies in store for her? Or is she the stronger character, and is that what sets her apart from the others? Either way, she is surrounded by these people, so this suggests that that is something she will continue to be surrounded with throughout the movie, but maybe on a more personal level. the additional use of a tilted frame and big close up on the hospital bed so her face is the correct way up on screen implies that she has a disjointed view on the norm, and hints that she has deeper mental problems.
Her voice over in the very first opening scene hints that she is facing some mental problems with the mention of, “maybe I was just crazy”. The use of past tense shows us that this is a memory, and therefore that the voice is her as a ‘third person limited narrator’ as the narrator already knows the outcome of her own story, but is limited in the knowledge of others, unless it ran parallel with her own. This disjointed protagonist, the one that narrates the story and the one that acts within it helps add to the confusion, and shows that her ‘journey’ is very complex.
The equilibrium is restored when the protagonist realises who she is, and who those around her really are, and then she is able to get an informed look on herself, and realise what she has done, and what she needs to do to move on. This happens at the end of the film, so the ‘journey’ that she goes on is one of self-discovery.
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