Coraline

Introduction

For my personal opinion, the main goal for me to continue typing in this blog rather than scoring marks in my film studies subject, is to enrich my knowledge about each and every film I have watched or I am going to watch. Through this practise, I am able to analyse film scenes and shots by paying attention on what I had learnt in lecture and apply them in when I need. There are different kinds of topics I would and will place in each post in this blog, and for the topic of this is to analysis the movie “Coraline” by describing some small parts of the mise en scene and mise en shot in film, and mostly about some genres or types of certain scenes. By using different types of shooting or filming skills, the movie manages to give us different kind of feelings and emotions along.

Theory

Talking about genre, it come with semantic and syntactic, in which the semantic is basically things or parts that are expected in the genre of a film, while in which the syntactic is the ideology of the certain genre. To separate semantic and syntactic views accurately, we can easily differentiate between the generic definition of both. Basically, semantics contain areas such as the setting of location, character, also the props or materials that need to be use in the film. These are the things what usually give the film their generic genre traits, for example the genre’s common traits, scenes’ attitudes, ways of shooting, specific locations, commonly used sets and so on. To be more accurate, I searched online and found a definition of syntactic approach that might help me to understand that particular theory deeper. According to Rick Altman (1984) , he stated that, while the semantic approach has little explanatory power, it is applicable to a larger number of films. Conversely, the syntactic approach surrenders broad applicability in return for the ability to isolate a genre's specific meaning-bearing structures. For instance, semantic approach stresses the building blocks of one genre, while when syntactic approach might focus more on arranging the structures.

Synopsis of the film

Coraline, it’s a story of a young girl who’s called Coraline, went through an exciting yet horrific adventure from a secret door in her house. Coraline Jones is a fearless girl that is bored in her new home. Work distracted her parents away from her. She met an annoying boy named Wybie. She also has few odd neighbours who live just nearby her house.  Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, a pair of ageing actresses; Mr Bobinsky, who is wo weird, always showing off his circus skills. Shortly, Coraline found out a hidden door in her new house and went on this adventure. At the first glance, the new world at the other side seems perfect , unlike the real world. On her third visit to this new world, her Other Mother persuades her to make her stay forever, and sew button into her eyes. At the end of the story, Coraline successfully saved everyone out of the trap.

Analysis of scenes

So, for all the scenes that I feel that it is classified as horror, I would choose one and talk about the scene which the Other Mother persuade hard or tried hard to force Coraline to sew button on her eyes. I find that part brought me chilly feelings as this scene gave audience the image to try to picture ourselves as in the character of Coraline. I find the lighting during this scene is bokeh to create the chill feel. Even though the Other Mother is trying to be really “good” to Coraline, but this trick is commonly used among horror films which able to let the audience started to figure out she is the bad guy in the film.

This film also uses German expressionism settings, the chiaroscuro lighting technic. The chiaroscuro is an Italian term that has meaning of light and dark. It refers to very high contrast in the usage of light and dark style. This technic makes this cartoon very different from the others as the horror feeling is not only come from supernatural creatures but also because of this chiaroscuro lighting audience tend to feel eerie.

Besides horror, there are also some scenes that brought out fantasy and adventure. For instance, I am going to analyse the scene where the Other Mother turns into a spider. The movement of the Other Mother and the expand of her body when she is turning into the other form are parts of fantasy as they all are surreal. Throughout this whole film, there are many scenes that use a lot of surrealistic portrait and enticing through colours and lively animation. The colours in the unreal house is very enticing as it contains a lot of hot colours such as red, orange, yellow, that attract the focus of audiences. Also, the colour of Other Mother who first dress in hot colours, then turned into a spider which is all black, make audiences to change the impression of her and able to know that she is the bad guy.

Conclusion

To summarize the points that I typed, I have learnt what is semantic, what is syntactic, and wishfully I am able to differentiate them. Without watching the trailer of reading the reviews or info about this film, I judged this movie based on the surface that it is a cartoon and it is for kids. I was so wrong, I have never thought that a cartoon film can give me such chilly even terrific feeling. I am beyond happy that finally I watched something that is unexpected and exciting film after so long, it is never a dull movie at all for my opinion.