Textual Analysis - About A Girl

About A Girl

Directed by Brian Percival (2001)

8:30 minutes

The film begins with the opening shot of a girl dancing and singing to Britney Spears' song 'Stronger'. In terms of cinematography, a wide shot is used in order to include the prominent cloudy sky in the background. The fact that it fills most of the shot space draws the audience's attention to the weather as a possible form of pathetic fallacy, this dull and dreary setting may suggest that this is a representation of this girl's life, or a way of foreshadowing dark scenes that are yet to come in the film. The girl is also positioned at the right side of the screen, the fact that she is not in the middle enhances the impression that she is alone and isolated. The sound is also used to support this cinematography, as the girl is singing song lyrics such as 'I've had enough' and 'I'm stronger than yesterday, now it's nothing but my way, my loneliness ain't killing me no more.' This reinforces her impression of isolation, but also introduces the symbolic structure of hopefulness that occurs throughout the film. As this is the first shot, this could be used as an enigma for the audience, to make them wonder why she is hopeful and why she has had enough, before her life is revealed.

As the camera cuts to the next shot, the editing becomes very fast paced as a sequence of cuts to different, short clips of dialogue from the same girl are shown. In terms of the mise en scene of this scene, the girl's costume portrays her to be a white, low class, young teenager. She has gold hoop earrings and a white puffa jacket which is slightly dirty, the fact that this item of clothing is out of fashion also highlights that she is not very wealthy and is from a working class background. However it was a clever choice of costume as it makes her story believable that she had been pregnant and able to hide it under that jacket, although ironically the colour white is often a symbol of innocence, so the fact that this is faded and dirty also compliments the fact that this may be representitive of the actual truth.

As the girl continues to deliver her monologue whilst walking, the audience are able to view the setting in which she lives. There are shots of railings, which have connotations of inprisonment with the metal bars which may suggest that the area she lives in is unpleasant - this is supported by her dialogue, for example 'When I'm dead rich and famous and people want my autograph, and living in a top flat in London, and your still here eating your burgers and your knock off lager.' There are also unsightly buildings and graffiti in the background which add to this low class, unpleasant place to live.

The girl is talking about her family issues and seems to dislike her mother and idolise her father. However following shots of, for example, her mother frantically scratching a scratch card whilst the girl has her back to her suggests that she is unaware of her mother's struggle and hopes to become wealthier and provide a better life after she has said 'She never lets us have nothing... but she's always got enough for ciggies, does she think I'm soft or what?'. Whereas her father, who she describes to 'always want to know what I'm up to', doesn't seem to have any interest in his daughter which is depicted through the use of shots of him in a cafe with the girl, reading his paper and ignoring her completely. Similarly, she says 'He takes me to the pub and gets me a coke and a bag of crisps', which would make the audience assume that they spend time together and he treats her, however the reality is very different as, through the use of cinematography and mise en scene, it can be seen that she has been left outside on a bench next to a run down pub in cold weather, whilst sounds of men laughing inside show us that he neglects his daughter and is more interested in having a good time with friends. The camera pans out slowly to reveal her iscolation and loneliness, and we see this shot for over 15 seconds so it has a lasting effect on the audience as they become very sympathetic towards her.

The next shots continue to portray the girl's desperation for a better life of fame and fortune as she talks about forming a band with her friends. Mid shots of the girls on a bus clearly show her happiness in the presence of them, singing and dancing, and they are obviously the only people that can relate to her. This is also the first and only time we see the girl without the white coat on which suggests that she can be open and honest with them and be her true self.

Throughout the short film we have consistently seen the girl walking alongside a canal in the background and towards the end there are more obvious images of her sitting above it, seeing the vast amounts of rubbish. This could be seen to foreshadow the twist of the ending, when she throws her baby into this canal which tells the audience that she only considers it as rubbish as well which is a very contraversial and upsetting idea for the audience to be faced with, which makes it very effective. As she does throw the baby in the plastic bag into the water, the effect is increased by silence for the first time in the film, she is not singing or energetically delivering her monologue. This pause is therefore extremely effective. She then turns away and a very high angle of the girl walking away from the canal leaves the audience with the lasting impression that she is still vulnerable, even after her disturbing actions, and a feeling of sympathy for the girl may still exist.