Last night, me and my flatmates decided to go against the student conventions of going out and getting slaughtered, and opted instead to have a movie night in and watch Pan's Labyrinth.
On the surface this film appears to be quite simple, portraying a little girls obsession with fairy tales becoming a reality as she discovers a new world. However, the film has deep and dark undertones which, naturally, I had to analyse and delve in to. Me and my flatmates did the standard media-student-analysis of the film and made some interesting observations. I think I can use the aforementioned undertones to further my understanding of the 'Myth' term I learned in this weeks lecture.
The film is set in Spain in the 1940's, where fascism was an accepted value of society. This is also reflected upon constantly throughout the film, where both Ofelia and her mother are abused by a man in the army, with whom they have settled with.
The little girl, Ofelia, is told by a fawn that she is princess of the underworld, and has to complete three tasks before she is allowed to return. Her first task was to go to a dead tree in the forest, where a poisonous frog was living. She had to feed it pellets to destroy it, as it was plaguing the tree and stopping it from growing.
On the surface this film appears to be quite simple, portraying a little girls obsession with fairy tales becoming a reality as she discovers a new world. However, the film has deep and dark undertones which, naturally, I had to analyse and delve in to. Me and my flatmates did the standard media-student-analysis of the film and made some interesting observations. I think I can use the aforementioned undertones to further my understanding of the 'Myth' term I learned in this weeks lecture.
The film is set in Spain in the 1940's, where fascism was an accepted value of society. This is also reflected upon constantly throughout the film, where both Ofelia and her mother are abused by a man in the army, with whom they have settled with.
The little girl, Ofelia, is told by a fawn that she is princess of the underworld, and has to complete three tasks before she is allowed to return. Her first task was to go to a dead tree in the forest, where a poisonous frog was living. She had to feed it pellets to destroy it, as it was plaguing the tree and stopping it from growing.
Fig 1.1 Ofelia and the dead tree (Source: aintitcool.com, 2005)
On the surface, this would appear to be just a regular tree. That's the denotation, that is what is literally there.
However, upon further inspection you'll notice that the tree is actually shaped like a uterus, and could even be referred to as a 'signifier of a woman' through association (semiotics!). The connotations of this tree are that the fact that it is dead and shaped like a uterus reflects the era as a whole, in that women were heavily opressed.
The myth, in my opinion, would be 1940's fascist Spain.
I've also started reading 'Digital Culture' by Charlie Gere, which discusses the rapid change that occurs all the time in our digital culture today.
'The only thing that never changes is that everything always changes.' (Charlie Gere 2008: 7)
I'm glad that I'm taking things that I learn in my lecture and subconsciously applying my knowledge to everyday situations, such as just a simple watch of a film!
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