High Rise

High Rise is a very short film that was made in 2002 by a director called Gabriella Russell. It focuses on a young mum who lives in a high rise block of flats on a council estate in Leeds (as this is where it was filmed). After watching this film I was led into thinking that the young mum features in this film was suffering from post-natal depression and felt emotionally detached from her child. This is because as she is watching the game show on television she can see her child wants her attention, she ignores this and steps outside the room, even though she can clearly see her child is about to be put into danger whilst attmepting to reach for her toy which is on the windowsill.

A particular element that I liked to this film was the fact that Gabrielle chose to use no dialogue or sound apart from the noises from the television in the room and also from the baby when it screams/cries in distress as to when her mother leaves her alone in the room. I feel that this technique was used as it enhanced the emotional distress in which the mum was feeling and added to the dramatic tension whilst watching it.

The structure and style used relates to its subject matter very well as the use of no dialogue and the chosen camera angles. There was a particular camera angle in which when the mum falls to the floor and the camera is looking down on her. This insinuates the fact that she has reached "rock bottom" in her life and is close to giving up. Also, there was another camera angle in which i particular liked which was when the mum came running back in the room to think her child had fallen to the floor from the window of their high rise flat. It was then a high angle shot from ou of the window looking down to a broken girl doll on the floor. This symbolises that it could have been her child and she was lucky that her baby didnt fall out of the window.

Although only very little sound was used, what we could here as an audience was very appropriate and succesffuly portrayed. The main sound we here is the sound coming from the TV which has some form of game show playing. The mum of the child is watchign the porgramme with such an intense stare its almsot as if she was looking at the woman playing the game thinking it was her. this then intensifies the charasters emotions and allows the audeince to connect more with her character.

Overall I did enjoy this film and the fact ti felt so intense and yet it was only just over two minutes long. Although, even though it was so short, it was long enough for this subject matter in which was trying to be portrayed. The way it zoomed into a random window of the high rise tower block, showed the footage of the young mum and her baby and then zoomed out again, it led me into thinking what else could be occuring in all the other flats in this high rise block.