The Shadow in My Eye (2021), also known as The Bombardment, directed by Ole Bornedal. Ella Nilsson (in the four scene caps here) is a young (Danish?) actor who plays a pre-teen named Eva living in Nazi-Occupied Copenhagen in 1945. At the beginning of the film, Eva is shopping with her mother and infant sister, and the mother asks her to attend to the pram briefly as she runs into a store. While standing on the curb with the pram, Eva is witness to a vigilante act just across the street: a teenage boy, Nazi sympathizer, is shot dead by Danish partisans. This is in broad daylight on a busy street, and there are many people about.
The shock registered on the young actors face is visceral, and we watch her go through several stages of processing and unwinding. Her mother's hand, quickly returning from the shop, covers her eyes, with limited success, and begins to hurry them away, but Eva continues to look back, trying to make sense of what she just witnessed. Adults are shouting and likewise hurrying away, and snippets of their conversation pass through Eva's consciousness. " A bloody snitch." "He knew too much."
This latter phrase sticks, and makes as much sense as anything else, and so Eva turns to ask her mom if that was what happened. "Was it because he knew too much?" But there is no response, and, as the camera lingers on Eva's face, we watch her waver under the weight of the reality of war.
It's a remarkable performance, and only one scene in an ongoing series of such revelations of innocence lost by all concerned in the story.
I saw these subsequent captures as a series of increasing abstraction as though the setting in of physical shock was part of a process of moving away from the pain of initial realization. Abstraction as disassociation. And, so, I drew the latter frames using a literal and increased abstraction.
But then that makes me think about whether my interpretation is a further step from the reality of the fictional death, and / or the reality of the film crew and actors interpreting, in reality, that fictional death.
In any event, it feels like a break that happens, and that was what I hoped to convey.
Fairly happy with this one as I feel it is relatively close to my intentions.
The Shadow in My Eye (2021), also known as The Bombardment, directed by Ole Bornedal. Ella Nilsson (in the four scene caps here) is a young (Danish?) actor who plays a pre-teen named Eva living in Nazi-Occupied Copenhagen in 1945. At the beginning of the film, Eva is shopping with her mother and infant sister, and the mother asks her to attend to the pram briefly as she runs into a store. While standing on the curb with the pram, Eva is witness to a vigilante act just across the street: a teenage boy, Nazi sympathizer, is shot dead by Danish partisans. This is in broad daylight on a busy street, and there are many people about.
ReplyDeleteThe shock registered on the young actors face is visceral, and we watch her go through several stages of processing and unwinding. Her mother's hand, quickly returning from the shop, covers her eyes, with limited success, and begins to hurry them away, but Eva continues to look back, trying to make sense of what she just witnessed. Adults are shouting and likewise hurrying away, and snippets of their conversation pass through Eva's consciousness. " A bloody snitch." "He knew too much."
This latter phrase sticks, and makes as much sense as anything else, and so Eva turns to ask her mom if that was what happened. "Was it because he knew too much?" But there is no response, and, as the camera lingers on Eva's face, we watch her waver under the weight of the reality of war.
It's a remarkable performance, and only one scene in an ongoing series of such revelations of innocence lost by all concerned in the story.
I saw these subsequent captures as a series of increasing abstraction as though the setting in of physical shock was part of a process of moving away from the pain of initial realization. Abstraction as disassociation. And, so, I drew the latter frames using a literal and increased abstraction.
But then that makes me think about whether my interpretation is a further step from the reality of the fictional death, and / or the reality of the film crew and actors interpreting, in reality, that fictional death.
In any event, it feels like a break that happens, and that was what I hoped to convey.
Fairly happy with this one as I feel it is relatively close to my intentions.