Blancanieves

Blancanieves is a silent film directed by Pablo Berger. This film, unlike other silent films we have watched, has an amazing cinematographic motion picture. The movie was released in 2012 and is directed in black and white and silent. This is unusual for the time this movie was directed and released but the actions from each character portray the story very well. The story is based around the daughter (Carmen) of a famous matador. One aspect that kept my attention throughout the movie was it was broken into three parts. The first part was about Carmen’s father and mother. Her father the famous matador who was blessed with unbelievable skills in his trait and just before his accident he speaks out to his wife about the child they are expecting. As soon as his tragic accident occurs it shocks his wife and she goes into labor. In labor she passes away giving birth to their daughter but the father is distressed and turns away from his own daughter. His nurse soon realizes who he is and marries him because of the money.

This leads into the second part which is the growth of Carmen. Once her grandmother passes away she is forced to live with her father, whom she’s never met, and her stepmother. The stepmother has an awful hatred towards her and doesn’t allow her to meet her father. Being a child, she disobeys her step mother and meets with her father who is thrilled to see her and gets flashbacks about his late wife. This leads to the third part which Carmen is following her father’s she becomes a successful matador before she was killed. Although the film was silent, Pablo does a great job in adding subtitles to get the main point across. This gives more meaning to the silent movie because the audience can assume what the characters are talking about but with the added subtitles it reiterates the main points shown acted.

One major comparison in the story line that Pablo uses is Snow White. Carmen is Snow White and treated how Snow White was treated in her story. Pablo does take a different take from the fairytale but the overall theme is the same. The step-mother is the evil witch which poisons the apple at the very end to kill Carmen. Carmen’s matador group is related to the seven dwarves, which at the end of this movie find the evil step mother and kill her by trapping her with a bull. Overall Pablo does a great job in showing the art of bull fighting and also tying that together to Snow White.

Zerio Dark Thirty

Your role in society is greatly determined by which gender you are. For many years society has determined what is acceptable for genders even though there those who look past that. Males are expected to provide, lead and financially support their families and society. Females on the other hand are expected to support males, take care of domestic errands and nurture others. These roles can be switched but it has taken society many years to accept this switch and even then only few do it. The classifications of these gender roles are shown in the film Zero Dark Thirty and also show the gender role switch.

In the movie Dan plays the ultimate male role. He is the leader of his team and takes no crap from anyone. He is the one to torture terrorists until they beg for mercy or die protecting the information he wanted. He is also the one to complain and show the truth behind war to his new female partner Maya. In the first half of the film, Dan, proved why males were the leader of society by being aggressive but also looking out for his country. Maya on the other hand proved why women are second in society because of timid approach in interrogating the suspects.

As the movie went on, there was a gender role switch. Maya understood that in order for her to be taken serious in a male’s world, she must act like one. She started to use different tactics Dan used such as water boarding a suspected terrorist into giving information she wanted. She started to take command and demand the respect she deserved. All the males started to follow her commands, even those higher up than her. One example was when she single handedly found out where Bin Laden lived but no one was taking action. She wrote every few days a number on her boss’s office to let him know how many days have passed since the discovery.

I personally believe the director (a female) used the characteristics of gender role perfectly. She was able to accurately portray roles of women and men in society. We were shown that males were dominate and overall had the final say in society and how everyone else depends on that. The gender switch plays a crucial role in showing that society can function with a woman who takes on the male’s role. We saw that the take down for the biggest man hunt in history was due to a female who switched roles for the better. Is gender construction usually seen in movies? No. but did it work for this particular film? Yes.

Devils Backbone

Del Toro's fascination with blending genre's can be seen in Devils Backbone but I would still categorize this as a horror film. Unlike other horror films, this film doesn't focus on the gore and killing but focuses on the plot. Most horror films lack a plot that makes sense or claim that the events are based on a true story. In this film there was blood and murder but the scenes were suspenseful. Like other horror films, there was a ghost in this movie but it wasn't used to terrify people but to show the injustice of greed. The horror displayed in this film can be more realistic because it contains death, war, and greed. Del Toro's intentions of making a horror film are not for the pure scare but for the mental images of lifelike events that can terrify society.