The Dragonfly Film Analysis - Essay Example

The Dragonfly Film Analysis Like short stories in literature, short films have a very small windowin which they might get their meaning across. While a short story is deemed to be anything that can be read within a single sitting, thus making the actual length quite variable as a result of the differing attention spans of the audience, a short film is generally considered to be any video that has a duration of more than one minute and less than 15 minutes although some definitions allow for as many as 40 minutes. Also like short stories, short films commonly focus on subjects that are usually avoided in the mainstream film genre. This may be largely due to the opening new technologies in this field have made for independent or avant-garde producers. “These artists, who often work in solitude and have little or no access to theatrical distribution, make films for the sake of making films and advancing the terms of the art” (Kawin 6). It should not be surprising then to discover that short films are just as dependent on their smallest element in order to convey their meaning as short stories and that deeper meanings are often intended. Within the short film The Dragonfly by Kim Albright, the story is told of a young boy who is very troubled by the lifestyle his parents live. This is not entirely clear from the beginning of the film, but comes out gradually as the film progresses. The story is not told in the classic sense with narration or speaking parts, but is largely told through the various actions portrayed on the screen. The meaning of the film is brought out through the film’s structure, pace, images and sounds. The film begins with the young boy seen running through a long hallway and down a series of stairs, through a parking garage and into a darkened park. There is then a sudden flashback to this same boy lying on his stomach on his bed and drawing. The film then begins to jump back and forth between the boy running in the present and moving about his room in the very recent past. In this past, he is seen several times looking out at the night and the full moon that seems to float just outside his reach, most often from the outside ground perspective. This has the effect of reducing the boy to a tiny lonely face peering out of a single lit window among a bank of darkened windows. As the boy reaches the safety of the playground, the flashbacks illustrate the boy’s caretakers coming home, obviously drunk and stumbling, and beginning to argue as they push their way up the narrow stairs. This is what caused the boy to run. The film ends as the boy swings on a swing to try to touch the moon and magically transforms himself into a glittering green dragonfly that flutters away into the night. The pace of the film is deliberate and quick. With only a five minute duration, it is necessary for the story to be told quickly and there is not a lot of time for excess dialogue. The boy is seen running through much of the film, giving it a stronger sense of urgency in its approach in addition its short duration. While the run from the apartment to the park seems to be a relatively short distance, it is prolonged by the frequent flashbacks on the events of the evening and the cause of the boy’s flight. These flashbacks serve to both slow the pace of the present action as well as drive the frantic pace of the overall action in the film. For example, each flashback contains its own form of action and suspense, as in the scene where the boy grips the doorknob to his room as the parents come home. The parents are never still either as they stumble up the stairs, knocking loose a ball that had been left on one of the steps and introducing yet more action to the scene. The constant shifting from the present to the recent past is activity in itself, so the viewer is never given the opportunity to get bored yet it sometimes becomes quite confusing. This is particularly true in the beginning before the viewer realizes what they’re seeing is a flashback as the film jumps suddenly from the boy running to the boy lying on his bed. Once this progression is understood, though, the film’s pace quickens between present and recent past with quicker and quicker succession until the boy, now swinging back and forth on the swing, jumps into the open air and flashes through golden light to transform into a dragonfly. As this description so far has made clear, the meaning of the film depends to large degree upon the images it uses. The image of the boy running introduces the concept of his loneliness and isolation. This idea is transmitted as the boy runs down an empty hallway, through an empty lobby, down the center aisle of an empty parking garage and into an empty darkness outside. This loneliness is also seen as the boy is sitting alone in an empty apartment at night and looking out of a lonely window in his building, the only one with a visible light on. The motionless ball on the stairs illustrates the idea that this child has no one to play with or keep him company. The darkness of his life is introduced with the darkness outside, but it becomes clear as the parents enter the house. They are identified only by their feet and the lower portions of their legs as they stumble in the door. This calls to mind the child’s perspective of adults as well as emphasizes the idea that this particular child is well acquainted with being kicked, at least on a metaphorical level. The beer bottles they wave around as they make their way upstairs clarify the reason behind their unstable behavior, but much of this has already been guessed by a predominantly Western audience. “People from different sense-making systems can literally see the world differently” (McKee 9). The full moon appears several times throughout the film, representing hopes, dreams and wishes. The image of the moon reflected in the eyes of the boy reinforce the idea that it is his dream under question in this video and his action of swinging as high as he can on the playground is understood to be an attempt to reach these dreams. The sudden flash of golden light that transforms him into the dragonfly thus becomes the answer to his dreams. Although there are few voices in the film, the sound contributes meaning to the action as well. Corrigan and White (2004) illustrate how music can add a significant element to the film as it creates the mood. The song that plays through much of the film is a hopeful combination of joy, escape, urgency and danger. The beat of the music is in keeping with the idea of flight and freedom while the melody keeps it joyful and hopeful. While the music forces action and introduces tension, it never permits the viewer to lose hope that the boy will find something better at the end of his run. This music is only interrupted as the parents come home and begin making their way through the apartment. As they make their way up the stairs, the parents trip over the ball and begin to argue with each other, loudly and perhaps violently. This is significant because it interrupts the giggling and laughter with which they entered the house and suggests that the boy, in his simple attempt to live a normal life within this environment, is often blamed for the hardships in the parents’ lives. Extending this further, anyone familiar with the alcoholic home would quickly assume that the boy is not simply running from an unhappy house but is instead also running from an impending beating and perhaps the blame he will receive for the beating given his mother as a result of the escalating argument. In the end, it can be seen that the meaning of the film is largely conveyed by the images, sounds, structure and pace of the story. These elements combine together to create a specific mood that tells the story of this troubled boy and his desire to escape his lonely and poverty-stricken circumstances to the point that his wishes on the moon come true in a beautifully magical way. References Albright, Kim. (2007). Dragonfly. [short film]. Available August 5, 2009 from Corrigan, T. & White, P. (2004). The Film Experience. Bedford/St. Martins, Boston. Kawin, Bruce F. (1992). How Movies Work. University of California Press, Berkeley. McKee, A. (2003). Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide. Sage, London. Read More