I have decided to analyse the short film Baghdad Express which is 11 minutes long, it is a drama film that is about a young girl working in her father's Arabic restaurant is forced to decide which comes first - her dreams or her family. The film centres on Maya, who has drive and ambition to leave her father’s restaurant in order to do better for her and work in the fashion industry. The film is a strong drama that identifies the sacrifices that people will make for their families and do so even if it means that dreams have to be abandoned. This film is quite similar to films like “Million Dollar Baby” which was a drama about a female boxer that sacrificed her career for the welfare of her family. At the start of this film you instantly realise it is a drama as it starts with a close-up of a sewing machine with dramatic music in the background, which instantly sets the tone of the film and makes the viewer aware of how the film will be. This film is quite similar to ours, as it is a drama and involves a character following their ambitious dream.
The film starts with an extreme close-up shot of somebody sewing on a sewing machine with slow and dramatic music playing in the background. The lighting is quite dark which creates a sense of drama and establishes the overall mood of the film. The titles cut in between, but are very simple this is because the opening scene is quite strong so the titles are kept simple so they don’t take away from the emotion of the scene. Then the sound of the sewing machine becomes louder and is edited rhythmically to the sound of hip-hop music and you see a character wearing heels walking down a busy city street. In this section the edits are done rhythmically so the beat of the music is matched to footsteps the character is taking. Then whilst this music we get the first establishing shots of the main character, which are from various angles. I think that this is done to signify the different sides to the main characters personality, which is a very clever way of letting the audience try to establish who the main character is and what she is all about. The shots in this section are all close-up so only part of her face are shown, and then eventually the whole of her face is revealed. The director adds an extreme close-up after this to show the main character applying eye make-up, which creates the idea that the character is going somewhere important. We then see the main character in two contexts, one appears to be some kind of interview where she is dressed well and then in comparison in a restaurant kitchen dressed in an apron. Next, we see the main character sat with a friend talking, the scene is key as it talks about people’s ambition and we begin to understand that the main character is striving to do more than work in a restaurant. After this we see a shot of what appears to be Maya’s father who she is injecting with some form of medicine, from this we then see the other side of her life and the importance of her family.
All the way through the film, the scene of a “interview” keeps interrupting which suggests that this is a key moment in the film. The mise-en-scene creates the image of a household in Britain with normally dressed people. This differs from our film which represents a successful movie star, who does not live an ordinary life at all. The mise-en-scene shows the features of a drama, as it conveys real life events that are dramatic, rather than made up horrors. The film also constantly visits the relationship the main character has with her father, which at times is conveyed to be strained and yet she still loves him. After receiving a letter, which appears to have arrived from the interviewers which have been shown to be a fashion college Maya toys whether she wants to read the letter which contains the decision. Eventually Maya burns the letter and when her friend asks her to go with her, she turns her down to instead continue her work at her father’s restaurant. This then signifies the end of the film.
This film links with our own in the way it explores a character that has a drive and ambition. The editing can be linked to our film, as we have used close-ups to show how the character is feeling and to establish the situation. We have also used rhythmic editing in our title sequence which is a fast paced photo shoot which is matched with fast tempo rock music in the background. This film does differ to our film as well, as this film shows a normal person who has the chance for a better future, our film is about someone who already has it all but struggles to cope with the pressures that are put upon him. We can use some of the features in this film to help add drama to our own film, as Baghdad Express uses a lot of the conventions that can be found in a horror film.
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