Look Both Ways

Clip 1: ‘What are my chances?’

Taken from the feature Look Both Ways (2005)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be M

Curator’s clip description

Returning from her father’s funeral, Meryl (Justine Clarke) daydreams a series of disasters that might happen to the train she’s riding. In one, the train runs into a tunnel that collapses on top of it. In an earlier scene, a TV newsreader has announced that this has happened that day, in another part of the city, killing 22 people. Meryl watches a man playing with his dog in the park. In a doctor’s surgery, Nick (William McInnes) learns that he has cancer. His life flashes before his eyes in a series of photos. The doctor refuses to give him a firm indication of his chances of survival.

Curator’s notes

This is virtually the first scene of the film – after the news of a major train accident – and it announces the film’s stark and original ambitions. The flashes of disaster take us straight inside the minds of the characters. The cancer diagnosis pitches the drama at an intensity usually reserved for later, after we’ve got to know the characters. Watt is telling us she’s not going to waste time, nor is she interested in a conventional kind of storytelling. It’s a risky opening, because it could alienate the audience, but it’s also exciting. Watt is firmly in control of what she wants to say, and unafraid to say it.

Paul Byrnes, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows Meryl (Justine Clarke) travelling home, beset by images of her death, while elsewhere Nick (William McInnes) is given a diagnosis of cancer. The opening sequence reveals Meryl’s feelings as she returns from her father’s funeral through the use of amplified sound effects, no dialogue, numerous close-ups and graphic animations of death. This sequence is followed by one in a doctor’s surgery where Nick’s feelings of mortality are revealed as his life flashes before him in a stylised and constructed photographic montage.

Educational value points

The contrasting colour palettes employed in the scenes portraying Meryl and Nick convey their different dilemmas and mind-sets. The scenes showing Meryl’s journey are dominated by intense rusty browns and greys that suggest her bleak state of mind. Conversely, the scenes depicting Nick’s visit to the doctor are shot in cold muted colours reflecting the cold atmosphere of the room, the coldness of death and his composed attitude to the doctor’s negative report.

The opening shots of the train together with the heightened sound effects draw the viewer into the inner world of Meryl’s anxiety. The series of uncomfortably close panning and tilting shots of the speeding train, coupled with exaggerated sound effects, combine to create the sense of an unsettled and unpredictable world where dangers may exist in what appear to be relatively innocuous situations.

Animation is used to graphically portray the depth of Meryl’s grief and disturbance. Using animation to reveal a character’s thoughts has numerous benefits: it separates the real (shown in live action) from the imaginings of the character’s inner world; it shows scenarios that would be difficult to stage in live action, especially on a limited budget, such as the train crushing Meryl. Finally, the childlike quality of the images may indicate the fragility of her mind.

The scene that abruptly cuts from Meryl throwing her head back to the shot of the birds wheeling away may indicate Meryl’s desire to escape the oppressive images she conjures of her own death. The edit between the two images links them in a cause-and-effect relationship – Meryl’s internal world and the birds’ flight planting the idea of an enormous release without directly demonstrating it visually or audibly.

The choice to shoot Meryl in close-up on the train serves to create meaning in a number of ways. It is a common filmic device to use a close-up from the shoulders up to suggest to the audience that the character being introduced is the main character in the story; here it is Meryl. Additionally, a close-up is commonly used to establish a point of view, and here the viewer is being invited to view the world through Meryl’s eyes.

The shots of Nick’s X-ray and the rapid montage of photographs edited in a wordless sequence reveal the extent of his condition. The film’s director, Sarah Watt, has visually conveyed the information concerning Nick’s medical diagnosis. The montage of photos and accompanying sounds that follow the shot of an X-ray unmistakably represent his life flashing before his eyes, an event often associated with death.