Wasp (Dir. Andrea Arnold) 2003

Sebastian Black                               Film Studies  A Level                    Thursday 24th September 2015

Wasp (Dir. Andrea Arnold) 2003

This film is a social realism film with the themes of love, poverty & family. The film was directed by Andrea Arnold, written by Andrea Arnold & produced by Natasha McLeod.

Mise-en-scene:

The clothing worn during the beginning by Zoe is a blue gown & she goes outside in this blue gown to another lady’s house to fight with them. She’s just wearing the blue gown & this represents to us that she is in a rush to fight, the blue gown also represent that she doesn’t care what she looks like when she’s going out however we see the opposite when Zoe is going down to the pub to see Dave because she wants to look her best for him as she hasn’t been out properly for a year & she hasn’t had time for herself. The children’s clothes are stained, this tells us that they are a poor family, they don’t have the facilities to wash their clothes & they also don’t have the facilities to wash themselves.

Dave's clothing is different to Zoe & her family, he wears more expensive clothing than Zoe, he is also clean, this tells that he is more financially stable compared to Zoe & her family. Dave also owns a car & that also tells us that he is doing well financially.

When Zoe was in the pub with Dave & they were talking, the camera moves to the slot machine & it shows 3 hearts, this could represent the love between Zoe & Dave & it could also represent the love between the children & Zoe.

Cinematography:

During the beginning there is a close up of feet & the stairs, this instantly tells us that the area that the characters are currently set in is a lower class area. We can also see the clothes that these people are wearing & whether or not the feet are clean which in this case aren’t clean. Because of the feet being unclean this makes us assume that they are lower class. We then see a mid-shot of this woman carrying a baby whilst rushing down these stairs; she is wearing a blue gown. She seems to be going outside & because she’s going outside in a blue gown, with a baby on one side of her & children at the back, this tells us that something serious is happening because the woman didn’t get prepared to go outside. As they are going down the stairs, we see different girls, when we look at their clothes we can see that they have stains on the clothes & on the children themselves again this makes us as the audience think that the people are lower class.

The close up of Zoe’s face when she’s having her first conversation with Dave shows her worrying & being indecisive. This close up is when Dave asks Zoe if she wants to go down to the pub with him, she’s reluctant to let him in her house because of the state of it, she also does not want Dave knowing that the kids are hers as this might scare him away. The worries Zoe has when Dave asks her to go down to the pub with him are related to her children & money. She doesn’t want to take the children with her & she doesn’t know if she can leave the kids with somebody. With the money, she doesn’t know if she has enough money to buy drinks at the pub.

When the mother is thinking about her date with Dave, she looks in her purse to see how much money she has. There is a close up of her purse, this shows us how much money she has & emphasises that she is poor because there’s hardly anything in her purse.

As the children are waiting for their mother to finish her date with Dave, the camera continuously moves to the bins the children are sitting near, this represent how the children may feel their self-worth is. They feel like rubbish just left at the side.

Majority of the shots are done hand held, this emphasises on the movement of the character(s) & it gives us a more realistic view of the people & the situation(s) they are facing.

Edit:

This film is both fast & slow paced. When something is major is going on e.g. a fight, the pace will be faster & this represents the action & it draws the audience in. The slow paced is used to represent the real world & how long it takes to get from one place to another.

Sound:

We have non diegetic sound in this short film, the soundtrack. We hear the song “Hey Baby”, we also hear “5, 6, 7, 8” when Zoe is outside the pub with her children & she dances & sings along to the song to cheer her children up. This again proves to the audience that Zoe does love her children & wants them to be happy, regardless of their current situation. "Hey Baby" is also an off screen diegetic sound we hear during the film. 

The diegetic sound we have is the dialogue between the characters. We can tell by their accents & the slang they use, they come from a lower class background.

Performance:

Although the way the mother (Zoe) treats her children may come across as neglect, at the end of the day, we know she loves them. During the beginning we see her get into a fight with another lady, they were fighting because the other lady slapped one of Zoe’s kids & Zoe was not going to let it go lightly & this is evidence that Zoe loves her children, regardless of the difficulties she is facing. Another example that shows that Zoe loves her kids is when she was in the pub ordering drinks, instead of ordering the drink for her; she changed her mind & ordered the packet of crisps & coke for her children to share amongst themselves. She could have easily not cared about them but she didn’t do that because she loves them. The last evidence I’m giving to prove that Zoe loves her children is when Zoe was in the car with Dave & Kelly calls her mum, Zoe immediately gets out of the car to see what’s wrong, once she’s there she sees that there is a wasp going into Kai’s mouth & she prays that is doesn’t sting him. Although she does shout at them, she ends up crying & hugging them all because she loves them so much that she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to them.