Film audiences are accustomed to particular cinematographic conventions. Audiences expect to be given a certain type of privileged vantage point—one that shows them not too much and not too little. They don’t expect things happening within the diegesis of the film to be hidden from them. But, in that same vein, they don’t expect to be shown any more than is necessary. Both The White Ribbon (2009, dir. Michael Heneke) and Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, dir. Abdellatif Kechiche) break with these conventions in especially effective and affecting ways, and it is because of the way these filmmakers refuse to conform to cinematographic conventions that these films are so successful.
The White Ribbon is a haunting film. Set in a feudal German village just prior to World War I, the film follows the adults and children alike as a series of cruel acts unfold without explanation. It is disturbing, but not in the way that a horror movie is disturbing. The disturbing nature of the film arises in large part not from what it shows its audience, but from what it fails to show.
The scene that illustrates this idea best occurs early on in the film. The pastor’s two oldest children, Klara and Martin, did not return home until very late at night, and the pastor decides to beat them as punishment. The scene begins in a cramped hallway. The pastor’s wife, Anna, calls Klara and she descends the stairs. She stops on a landing, above her mother and brother, and the frame cuts her in half. We cannot see the expression on her face nor can we see any kind of silent interaction she has with either of the other two characters. In fact, throughout the opening scene we barely see the characters’ faces, and if we do they are in profile or somehow obscured in part. They barely speak, and so the audience has very limited access to their internal thoughts and feelings. The most significant gesture we see is Anna’s lingering hand on her son’s back. A benefit of this stripped-down, withholding camera is that every piece of information we are given, because we are given so little, is imbued with meaning. By depriving his audience, Heneke makes us hyper-vigilant. The camera pans down the hallway and the three characters walk single-file toward the dining room’s door. We watch from our same spot as they walk away—again, we do not see faces, only the backs of heads. Throughout the scene, the camera hardly ever moves from its spot, it just pivots. It is as though Heneke has made the viewer herself a character in the scene, standing and turning her head to follow the action, but rooted to the spot, unable to move. The three characters disappear behind the door, and the camera remains in the hall. Because viewers are so accustomed to being shown everything, it seems unnatural to not follow the characters in. Martin comes back into the hallway, head down, and the camera from its limited vantage point follows him as he retrieves a switch from another room. He then returns to the dining room and we are once again left staring at a closed door. We can, however, hear him being beaten through the door. The film revolves around a community that is so repressed and secretive. So much goes on behind closed doors, in this case literally, and the camerawork reflects that. The passivity of the camera also gives the viewer a sense of helplessness. We are just standing there, hearing all this unfold from the hallway. The camera is not fully engaged with the scene in the way that we expect it to be, and that distance reflects the distant complicity of every other member of this community throughout the film.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Blue is the Warmest Color, a film following the affair between a young girl and an older female art student. It is affecting because it shows its audience absolutely everything. One scene that illustrates this occurs after the protagonist, Adele, breaks up with the boyfriend she has early on. She returns to her room and breaks down crying. She strips off her scarf and jacket and the camera follows her as she collapses on her bed. We see her in this moment of extreme vulnerability and emotionality in a very intimate space, her own bedroom and her own bed. The viewer is given access to every piece of her private life. Kechiche immediately takes us to an extreme close-up of Adele’s face—and it is worth noting that a disproportionate percentage of the film is composed of extreme close-ups of Adele’s face. It is as though Kechiche is trying to climb inside her head. In the same way that Breathless can be said to be a study of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s face, so too can Blue be said to be a study of Adele’s. Kechiche stays in that close-up for an uncomfortable amount of time, so long that a viewer might want to look away. Adele does not look pretty in this moment, and part way through she picks up a candy bar and takes a bite, chewing with her mouth open. It is a raw, ugly study of a painful moment in this character’s story. It is almost too intimate, and feels invasive. The way Kechiche uses his camera ties into the overall themes because it is a revelatory film—it depicts a love story rarely seen on film, and it is, in many ways, about Adele’s journey to come out. The film seeks to dig into this intimate, private affair and give its viewers access that they otherwise would never have. It is trying to get into the heads of these women, and Adele in particular, and it does so by looking at her face.
In conclusion, these two films serve their overall themes by breaking cinematographic conventions in opposite ways. In taking these risks, their directors have created effective and affecting films.
Comments