'Still Life' Analysis

Camera: establishing shot, extreme close up, medium shots 

Editing: straight cuts, short cross fade, extended cross fade

Sound: few sound effects, much non-diegetic

Mise-en-scene: sparse, winter town. large bags under his eyes, (drugs?) casual clothing

'Still Life' starts with plain, bold white titles fading from black, to reveal a long establishing shot of a snowy background, over which the title of the film fades in very slowly. A mixture of close ups and extreme close ups inside of a car depict a man with large bags around his bloodshot eyes, taking pills and drinking what appears to be coffee. The film has no score, but uses the cars radio to provide a small amount of music and talking. A number of cross fades are used to show and extreme close up of the mans eyes, and the moving road ahead. To set the scene and almost see the film from the mans perspective, a number of tracking and panning shots are used to depict the environment. A key element to this film, is the fact that for the mannequins to move, there need to be shot reverse shots back to the man allowing the film to look as though the mannequins are real, allowing the film to have a perfect flow. The huge plot twist of this film comes at the end as the camera very cleverly cuts and shows the man looking at his reflection in the mirror, only to find that he is covered in blood and the mannequins were in fact real people. The absence of sound in this film adds to the eeriness and makes the town that he enters feel even more sparse than it actually is, overall effecting the mood of the film.