Belladonna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X57XEnDvia0

Here's the mask short film by our groupmates. This video is about how the people conform theirselves into the society, but at the same time they are hiding their true selves , because no one wants to be left out. In this video, there were 11 of us acted the ' normal' one with all dressed in black clothes, one of us, Carmen acted as the 'odd' one who will always be her true self in this hypocritical society. However, those' normal' ones are actually hiding the dark side of their real personalities. This is because people believed that follow the society stream is the only way to be accepted by others. Anyway, I think that we must be confidence to be ourselves towards others, and be kind to others also,not taking the evil side as our  'true' selves to harm or take advantages on others.

The trend of 1930's-60's dark movie- Film Noir

      

        What is noir? Noir is defined as the black film or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings. Noir is also a suggestive of danger or violence. Film noir was coined by French film critics when Nino Frank noticed the trend of ' how dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to the theatres following the war, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941),Murder, My Sweet (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Laura (1944).  These films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. The elements for film noir are fear, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict and sense of injustice. Hence, there were rarely happy endings in noirs.

The Maltese Falcon(1941)

         

          

Murder

 

The woman in the window

(1944)

 

 

My sweet ( 1944 )

 

 

Double indemnity(1941)

 

 

 

Laura(1944)

 

      The theme of classic noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia. Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

 

        The story-line for classic film noir were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Dark and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience were thematically showed in noir film, which mostly shot in gloomy grays, blacks and whites. The protagonists in film noir were normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes.