documentary film: a non fiction film intended to document reality for education and/or entertainment.

examples:

kiss the ground, inside death row, oasis: supersonic

how does the film use soviet methods of montage techniques to tell the workers story?

In part 6 ‘extermination’ (the final part) of Eisenstein’s 1925 film ‘Strike’, he uses an intellectual montage in the cow slaughtering scene. the scene was violent and raw making it disturbing for the viewer, the shots alternating from the man brutally slaughtering the cow to the working class attempting to flee and dying represents how both are fighting for their life and rights but the power and greed the upper class hold over them unfairly chooses their fate for them. 

We also see a shot of the soldiers followed by a shot of a butcher, showing the parallels between the two powerful killers in each scenario and being a metaphor for how the working class are seen as less than humans but more as something to be useful to the upper class, just as cows are often only seen as meat. 

in the scene where the labour class man is asked to come together and join forces, he loses his temper, causing the antagonist to smash the table with his hand, spilling the ink on the map. here a tonal montage was used, it shows the viewer the darkness that comes with carelessness and ignorance the upper-class have and how their anger can cause mass destruction to the people they’re in charge of. the ink can also represent blood and the upperclassman’s hand getting covered in the ink after putting his hand on the map represents the blood on his hands.

a metric montage is used to create suspense in the scene where the soldiers are on their horses and are fighting the workers. a number of shots capturing the workers running around scared and trying to fight back makes the viewer feel a midst of the chaos as if it was surrounding them. there being less soldiers on the horses than workers on the ground shows how they are a higher status to them and have an advantage as well as not having to fight as hard to survive in life.

Gender: In the city of god Women are not given any major roles in the plot and the only women we see in the film are sides or girlfriends such as Shaggy’s and knockout Neds. when women are seen on screen they are treated very badly by men, especially lil ze who ends up sexually assaulting Knockouts neds girlfriends.

Aesthetics:

Realism: The use of using Rocket as a narrator makes the film feel more realistic as it gives the film a documentary style tone. Merellies does this because this film is based of a true story in brazil and he wants to get that story across to the audience.

Tone: The tone in city of god would be regarded as serious and gritty. This is done by merellies to highlight the problems in brazil at the time the film was set. Problems such as conflict and civil unrest had been overlooked by the Brazilian government for a long time. an example of a scene that captures the serious gritty tone of the film would be the scene where lil ze shoots the children as it was very rare to see child violence in films.

Visual style: The colour grading in the film is split into 2 different sections. in the first section the colours are toned more lighter and softer to match the narrative of the film. IN the second section the colours are toned as darker and sharper to match the narrative at that point in time such as during the war between lil ze and carrots gangs.

Technological: The creatures seen in pans labyrinth are created using minimal amounts of CGI, clever consume designs and use of a green screen. Del Toro wanted to uses minimal CGI is it would make the Creatures in the fanatical world look and move more realistically.

Historical: With the film being set in 1944 this would be set during the start of Francisco Franco’s rule as dictator of Spain. Del Toro arguably based or took inspiration from this figure when creating Capitan Vidal. Both being heavily corrupt and sexist toward certain individuals.

Social: During the time pans labyrinth was set women were seen as inferior to men and were given housekeeping jobs. We se this with Mercedes and the other cooking staff and how they are all women.

Political: The film is set a few years after the Spanish civil war in which Captain Vidal takes the role of The fascist Spanish government.

Institutional – Pan’s Labyrinth was directed by Guillermo del Toro and made a profit of 37 million dollars. this would bee regarded as a box office success