Short Film Analysis- Malheur directed by Jeremy Richard

Malheur is a 5 minute French animation directed by Jeremy Richard. The film is about a young man how his parents killer 20 years ago comes back to find him. The film is completely filmed in Black and White, until the end credits when the snapshot behind the ended credits is in colour. This film is quite unique as it is filmed entirely with Lego using stop-motion animation. It is because of this fact that it relies on the visual and audial effects to to tell the story.

The films begins with a low angle long shot of a Lego man walking into a house as the non-digetic sound runs through the scene. the interesting part is the bird's eye shot as the killer enters the bedroom and crosses the room. It cuts to a out of focus shot of him as he stares at the couple before a close-up of his gun as he shots them and leaves. The film then jumps to a bird's eye shot of buildings, 20 years later. It is during the next few shots we are introduced to a young man who looks at a man who resembles the killer. As the camera pans from the outside of his home to the front room. it is he we realise that he is the son of the couple who were killed as he has a flashback. The Non-Digetic sound starts again it cuts to him on a bench  and as he is walking, he keeps hallucinating that every man he sees is the killer. But what he doesn't know is the the killer is actually following him. The Non-Digetic sound starts to build every time the killer is on screen. The end of the film is left on a cliffhanger as there is a fade to black and a gunshot is heard.

The end credits is a zoom on a door of where the young man now lays dead is in colour. There is a bird's eye shot of his dead body before it cuts to a quote by Aristotle. The simplicity of the film is useful because at first you think that it's going to be hard to understand but as the films goes on, it becomes easier to get the story. The editing is quite simple in the fact that there are not many cuts. But, in one to the scenes there is a pan from the outside world into the house. It is at this point that the man turns on the television, the newsreel is in complete colour. The story during the scene is about the man's parents and how they were murdered 20 years ago. Although the film has kept to a very simple narrative and doesn't have a one-plot twist associated with short films. Stylistically the film, holds itself up and is shot in a unique way. Jeremy has used simple editing and the narrative is easily noticeable but the effective parts of the film were in the use of colour, sound and titles.

The ideas that I may take from watching this short film ia relying on the non-digetic sound to relay the story to the audience, however, I think it would be more harder as you would have to find the right music that is not only suitable for the genre of our film but one that fits well with the editing and cinematogprahy. I may take the use of filming in Black and White as it makes it more effective and could possibly create an atomosphere. It makes the film more of a thriller because it's filmed in Black and White. Not using actors but objects like Lego would be more complicated but I think it would be unqiue. It would take a very long while and require a lot of planning.