Textual Analysis - The Others

The Others

 This film opens on a black screen with a woman softly narrating. She begins with "Are we sitting comfortably?", which many of the western, older generations would associate with 'Listen With Mother'. This would help the audience link this beginning to children's stories. This also helps us identify the target audience as adults and older generations.

A candle light-like effect then flickers on to reveal a drawn, dark picture montage of the interior of an old house, gothic house with childish characters dressed in old fashioned clothes. Revealing the setting of the film to be quite historic and gothic. The music is slow and classical, but with a sinister twist, indicating a tragic storyline. The credits fade in and out peacefully with the pace of the music.

The last drawn picture is of a big, historical house in what seems to be the middle of no where. The picture fades out onto an establishing long shot of the actual house. The mist has enrobed the building. Mist would be a connotation for spooky, mysterious scenes, settings and/or stories.
The music seems to come to an end slowly, indicating to the next shot.

The music is suddenly cut short by a very high-pitched scream emanating from the woman on screen, breaking the calm produced by the music and childish pictures. This could symbolise reality breaking through a story-like visage. A close up of the woman's face shows her terror. Slowly, the camera turns 90 degrees and zooms out into a mid-shot to establish that this character was lying in bed.This would indicate that was she just having a bad dream. This quick run through from peaceful, to terror, to relief plays on the audience's emotions effectively.

 The scene then moves to a long shot of the outside of the house. Mist is still surrounding the house, blocking out the background, so it remains mysterious as to where the house is situated. Three silhouttes walk across the grounds. The audience can hear distant conversation between the three. They sound cheerful as they laugh. This is a big contrast to the mood of the scene.

There is match on action in the next shot as the camera closes in on the three beings approaching the house. The long shot is taken up mostly by the granduer of the large door and face of the building, showing that the people who live here are of high class status. The conversation is a lot more audible, but we cut in half way through a sentence, so the clip the audience does hear is very confusing and sparks many questions about the trio. There is diegetic sound as they cross the gravel-covered ground towards the door.

At the end of the two minutes, we are re-introduced to the terrified woman in an earlier shot. This ties up the connection between her and the house, as she answers the door in an over the shoulder shot to the three, mysterious characters. Only her face appears in the crack of the door; implying that she may be paranoid or nervous about showing herself fully. Another connotation for this body language could be because she is a mysterious character who has yet to reveal everything.