About A Girl Analysis

About a Girl

The film begins with the title being typed onto a simple black background in a text like font, while the sound of non-diegetic beeping is also heard suggesting the theme of youth to the spectators and representing the age of the character we are about to see.

The next shot we see is an extreme long-shot of a silhouetted girl dancing and singing along to ‘Stronger’ by Britney Spears in an overgrown, unkempt field setting.

 

The film then cuts to a series of hand-held medium close-ups of a young girl with a strong Manchurian accent talking directly to camera as if she is direct addressing spectators. Her accent represents her regional identity while the Mise en scene of the setting shows her working class background, with the grim and de-saturated lighting and dilapidated industrial estate showing this, also during these high frequency cuts and shots we can see graffiti on a canal wall also indicating disrespect in the area she lives in. It is through the Mise en scene that the issues of endemic poverty and social disenfranchisement are brought to the spectator’s attention. Costume is also used to hint towards the girl’s class and status, with her gold hoops, scraped back hair and sporty puffa jacket all holding the stereotypical connotations of ‘chav’ and being from a lower class, also called material deprived.

During these faced paced cuts, we can notice that the teenage girl is very erratic in her speech, going from one topic to the next and talking openly about herself; this shows the girl’s confidence in herself. She is confiding in us about her family and her wish to become a famous singer in the future, this reveals that she has limited horizons and false dreams, which is usually a common characteristic in children from a poorer background. The use of jump cuts generating discontinuity editing and the high frequency editing pace also helps to add to the girl’s erratic behaviour, conveying the complicated, disjointed life that she is leading.

When the young girl is addressing spectators with medium close-ups the short film cuts to show flashbacks of the girl’s past life. The first flashback we see is of the girl, her mother and younger sibling, with the girl in the foreground of the frame texting generating a pull focus on her Mum and sister in the background, with the mum completing a scratch card connoting the need of money for example, it signifies the Mothers dream to get out of their financial situation.

We are also introduced to her and her Fathers relationship. However, it is obvious from what she says that her Mother and Father are separated and do not have a working relationship. We then see a 2 shot of the young teenage girl and her Father sitting in a run down cafe; informing us that this could be their only quality time together however the girl’s Father is more interested in reading his newspaper than talking to his daughter. We then hear diegetic dialogue of the girl saying how she watches her Dad play football on a Sunday and then he takes her to the pub for a coke and a packet of crisps. We then see the girl outside the pub on her own, eating her crisps and singing along to ‘Stronger’, while we hear the diegetic sound of cheers from inside the pub. This shows where the Father’s priorities are and raises the issue of child neglecting as some would say that even as a young teenager the girl shouldn’t be left outside on her own. In this extreme long, tracking back shot of her outside the pub, the setting reveals a chimney stack which would have been part of a cotton mill during Manchester’s industrial past, connoting the raw, working class location.

Towards the end of the short film, shots begin to change from a low-angle, close-up composition and replaced by a crane high angle extreme long-shot. These shots including lighting and colour can begin to be open to our interpretation as we are put into a different perspective of her walking on the darkest side of the canal. We see her throw a plastic bag into the water in the canal. This generates enigma as we do not know what is present in the bag, however, due to the working class

representation of the teenage girl, it can be easy to judge that she has done something very wrong and bad of her. The high-angle from a crane the draws back to her normal life, this can be representing judgments on her actions.

There is a very common stereotype about teenage Mothers, who are normally associated being of a working class and material deprived. When we find out that she has thrown her baby into the canal, the action of this is edited in a very slow pace emphasising the main message and shock value of the short film. The close-up of the dead baby makes us question whether we are supposed to judge her or sympathise with her?

About a Girl represented age and class using some very unique and interesting techniques that engages spectators until the end, leaving you shocked. The way in which the shot film has been edited can relate to the age of the young teenage girl. This is through the high frequency of cuts. The rapid use of cuts and jump cuts shows the speed of a teenage girls though process. The hand-held camera work and jump cuts create discontinuity editing implementing the quick thoughts of a teenager, emphasising the ages mind patterns. The use of camera shot sizes are shot in a way to clearly show settings and costumes to really emphasises the working class background of herself and her location she lives in.