Movie Review: Analysis of the concepts of Miss-en-scene and Sound effects in Korean films
Most of the movies that showed during the course were interesting to watch and analyze. The Asian movies, for example, the movies from Korea and Japan, among other Asian countries, were interesting for watching and reviewing. Watching and analyzing the Korean was an interesting thing. The areas that the review of the Asian movies focuses are miss-en-scenes and sound effects. Miss-en-scene is an area of film analysis that focuses on the arrangement of the stage which defines the geographical setting of the film.
There are certain properties that appear on stage to define the film in terms of its setting. When analyzing the miss-en-scene of a film, the focus of the analyst entails the physical properties that appear on stage, and the analyst ties the properties to their geographical setting. Thus, when analyzing the miss-en-scene of a film, the focus of the analyst is on the elements on the stage or the place where the shooting takes place, and how the elements tie the film to its setting (Davis 1).
Davis illustrates that there are key elements that are important for consideration when analyzing the concept of miss-en-scene. The elements include lighting, color, settings/locations, prop, costume, characters, and dialogue. These are the elements that the viewer interacts with on the stage (Davis 1). Sound effects refer to the modifications that the sound crew introduces in the film to give it the desired audio perspectives. The sound effects are not natural. Rather, the sound crews introduce artificial effects that make the viewer imagine that the production process actually produces the sounds in a natural way.
The aim of the review is to analyze the aspects of mise-en-scene and sound effects in five movies that are Asian. The Asian movies that the student analyzes include A Tale of two sisters, the host, Old Boy; I saw the devil, and Rigor Mortis. The five movies are all Korean movies. The aim of the student is to analyze the five movies while giving an insight into hoe the movies apply the concepts of miss-en-scene and sound effects.
While analyzing mise-en-scene, the focus of the student is on the visual aspects that are within the frame of shooting, and how the aspects contribute to the overall communication of the movies. Sound-effects-analysis focuses on the auditory aspects of the movies. The student analyzes the effects that the sounds of the films create on the movies. Certain sounds are natural while others are artificial. The analysis gives an understanding into the nature of the sounds used in the films (natural/artificial) and the effects that the sounds have of the productions.
A Tale of Two Sisters is a film that has vivid ideas on mise-en-scene and sound effects. Beginning with miss-en-scene, especially the aspect of lighting, Davis (1) explains that the film uses dim lighting. Considering the categorization of the film as a horror film, it is understandable why the film uses dim light. Dim light achieves the overall effect of horrifying the audience because of the aspect of darkness.
Davis (1) explains that the lighting in the movie is dim and shadowy, and “it makes the audience feel uneasy as they are unable to see much of the setting and it automatically makes them expect that something or someone is there.” The shadows have a strategic effect on the audience. Since the objects are not well-illuminated, the audience develops the feeling of uncertainty that contributes to the horror-effect of the film (Davis 1).
Color is a concept of mise-en-scene that the film uses to make the woman outstanding from the background. It is possible for the audience to separate the woman from the background because she wares a red dress (outstanding color).
The color ‘red’ is symbolic as it represents danger. The film also makes the ghost outstanding because she is in a green dress. In addition, the film uses the setting of kitchen (Davis 1). The intention, as Davis (1) explains, is to give the audience the false feeling of security so that the characters would be suspecting nothing tragic and horrific. Also, the color and decoration of the room where the movie is set gives the audience the feeling that the setting belongs to the rich people yet it is set in the historic Korea where there was poverty.
The film chooses props strategically, with the aim of making it horrific. The man in the film, for example, is dressed in dark color. The main prop is the blue cupboard as it is persistent in the film. The woman’s hair-clip is also a prop that is persistent in the film. The focus of the viewer is on the hair-clip and when the woman is grabbed, it becomes horrific because the viewer does not focus on the act of grabbing the woman.
The other aspects of miss-en-scene that make the film horrific are costumes, characters, and dialogue. An example of costume and character elaboration is the ghost girl. She wares an “Old-fashioned, fairly big dress when sat on the chair,” The audience gets the impression about how long the girl has been dead. The man also appears to be far much older than the girl, giving the horrific feeling that the love association between them is a forced one because of the gap in their age (Davis 1).
On the aspect of dialogue (mise-en-scene), the film uses short expressions. The effect of the short expressions is that they conceal a lot of information from the audience, a factor that contributes to the horror feeling. The man in the film uses a short expression, “Go to bed,” but the woman ignores his command. The viewer gets the suggestion that they do not live by relating well to each other. Overally, the sound effects in the film make it horrific. The viewer observes that when there is clam in the film, the sound effect is generally relaxed. The tempo of the sound used in the film is used strategically to achieve horror. The viewer observes that when a horrific incident approaches, the tempo of the sounds increases.
One such incidence is when horror approaches the woman in a red cloth. The camera focuses on the hair-clip, and sound’s tempo increases to signify the approaching danger. The hand emerges and traps the woman, and at this point, the viewer associates the increasing tempo of the sound with approaching danger. The film uses both artificial and natural sounds, for example, the sounds that play before the woman is trapped are artificial. She yells when the hand grabs her hair (natural sound), a reaction that makes the film horrific.
In the film the Host, the monster is the major element of mise-en-scene that is used to achieve the theme of horror. One aspect about monster is that it emerges when it is least expected. The day is seemingly calm and peaceful, meaning that nobody expects horror, for instance, the emergence of the monster.
However, when the monster emerges, it begins to terrorize the people. The people feel horrified and they scamper for their safety as the monster terrorizes them. The viewer develops a feeling of fear, imagining himself or herself in the situation where the monster emerges unexpected. The viewer notices that the horrific scenes are darker that the less-horrific scenes. When the monster approaches, light decreases to create the effect of anonymity that leads to horrific feeling in the audience (Korean Film Festival Canada 1).
What the reader sees in the film adds to the identification of the setting of the film. The monster emerges from River Han, which is a River in Korea. When the monster emerges, it snatches a girl from her father. The choice of the female gender as the one that is affected by the monster, first, means that the female people are the at-risk population of horror.
Gwoemul (1) explains: “When a young girl is snatched away from her father by a horrifying giant monster that emerges from the River Han to wreak havoc on Seoul, her entire family sets out to locate the beast and bring their little girl back home to safety in South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s big-budget creature feature,” (Gwoemul 1).
Characters also contribute to the horrific feeling of the film. The main character is Park Gang-du. Park contributes to horror when the girl who was suspected to have been killed by the giant calls him. When the girl talks to Park, it emerges that the creature regurgitated her into the sewer, and the creature preserves her there for the future consumption (Gwoemul 1).
The viewer also perceives how the monster is designed as intentional. The purpose is to make the monster horrific so that the viewer develops fear and imagines that the monster is real. It produces horrific sounds that make the viewer feel that it thirsts for someone to consume. Also, the physical appearance of the monster matches the horrific sounds that it produces. Physically, it has a spine that is S-shaped.
It is not a real fish-creature because most of its parts are mutated, and the mutation makes the viewer feel that it is not a sea-creature but a monster. The monster emerges from the water with a horrific loud sound that makes the reader feel shaken as if he or she is the target of the monster. When the monster approaches to strike an individual, the tempo of the sounds increases and suddenly falls when it captures its target (Gwoemul 1).
The viewer considers the film Old Boy as one film that has meticulous mise-en-scene. Analytically, the mise-en-scene in the film is effective towards advancing the horrific feeling that the movies intends to achieve. The film uses colors and graphic effects that are symbolic of the characters and the idea of their fate. Kim (1) explains that the predominant colors in the film are “Red, black, white, green, and violet.” Violet is the color that contributes to the mise-en-scene of the film most because it is the color of the main characters, Soo-A and Woo-jin. Purple is the color that dominates the props that the producer uses, for example, the color is on the umbrella, handkerchief, box, and envelop (Kim 1).
The color purple is symbolic in the Korea culture because it has the meaning of death. Other ideas that the color symbolizes include famine, repression and feelings of elegance. During the imprisonment of Mi-Do the color purple appears in different shapes, symbolizing repression. The sounds that the viewer listens to in each horrific scene make the film horrific. The viewer notices that most of the sound effects of the film are artificial. Particularly, the producers use the quality of the sounds and their tempo to create the horror-effect (Kim 1).
I saw the devil is a film with bloody scenes. The visual effects of the film contribute a lot to its horrific feeling. The viewer feels horrified by the envious and merciless killings that take place in the film. Horror centers on the major characters of the film, for example, Syo-hyeon-Kim. Kim is an agent that is highly trained but the fiancée goes missing. She disappears on the day that her car gets a mechanical problem beside the road.
Horror strikes fast and there is a flashing sound that signifies the disappearance of the woman. The viewer feels as if the hand of horror grabs him or her from the world. However, Kim deals with the horror of the fiancée’s in an equally horrific way because he decides to pursue the captors on his wife (Kofi 1).
In Rigor Mortis, the film achieves horror through the use of vampire creatures. There are the vampires that are creatures with extraordinary abilities and they terrorize human beings. When the film starts, the viewer sees the actor Chin-Siu Hou entering a tenement building. The sound effects that the film uses increase in tempo as Siu-Hou enters the building creating the anticipating effect in the viewer. The viewer does not see the inside of the building until Siu Hou enters it. Such suspense is supposed to put the viewer in darkness, not knowing what exactly shall transpire.
The viewer knows about Siu-Hou’s intention of going to the building when he ties one end of the rope around his neck and the other end on the ceiling. After Siu-Hou attempts committing suicide in the building, it gets clear that the building has a dark history that makes it horrific. At this point, the viewer feels frightened about the building. For example, horrific images of the shadows of the ghost appear dangling in the building. Also, the viewer feels the pain that Siu-Hou undergoes. However, it becomes less horrifying and it gives the viewer the relief-feeling when Yau bursts into the building and cuts off the rope (Buchanan 1).
However, the aspects of misenscene in the film do make the communication of the horror film easy. The film does not link what the reader sees with the message or theme of the film. Buchanan (1) states that it is a difficult movie to get into because of its unclear usage of mise-en-scene. The viewer cannot rely on the arrangement of the clips to get the horrific meaning of the movie. However, the viewer feels the horror effect of the movie at certain instances. “Mak, Yung, and Leung front-load the movie with so much despair, but also because it takes quite a bit of time to get moving,” (Buchanan 1). The quote means that the producer of the film did not interlink the scenes at the right speed, taking too long on one scene before moving to the next. Focusing on one scene for too long is not a strategic way of creating horror in film. The observation that any viewer shall always make is that one achieves better communication and horror effect if he interchanges the scenes of the film at a first rate. The viewer does not get the time to ‘digest’ the visual aspects in a scene, and he moves to the next scene without understanding the preceding scene. Such disconnections lead to the feeling apprehension in the viewer, making the film achieve the horror effect. Buchanan explains that the overall effect of the film is not scary (p.1). “The driving factor behind the success of the original wave of Jiangshi films was their ability to frighten us, disarm us with humor, and then — at precisely the right moment,” (Buchanan 1).
In certain instances, however, the viewer feels horrified by the film. The scene where Yang searches for apartment where the ghosts are imprisoned is horrific. The viewer knows that the apartment is where Gau has trapped the ghosts. With the understanding that the ghosts are dangerous, the viewer feels frightened that Yang may release the ghosts and bring back horror. In the same scene, Tung kills Yang, a horrific act that leaves the viewer with the feeling of Tung’s mercilessness. Although Chin defeats Tung and “leaves him for the dead,” the ghosts possess Tung (Buchanan 1).
In conclusion, Korean movies use mise-en-scene and sound effects to create horror. The student has analyzed different aspects of mise-en-scene and sound effects in the five Korean movies. One idea that comes from the films is that the producers use a lot of visual effects in creating the desired horrific feelings in the viewer. Lighting is an important element of mise-en-scene. The scenes that create the horror-effect have little illumination, putting the viewer in suspense concerning the images in the frame. Such disturbing feelings, which result from the viewers’ inability to see the images clearly, contribute to horror in the movies.
Color is another element of misenscene that makes some of the movies horrific. However, the aspect of color communicates the ideas or associations of the Korean culture. Purple, for example, is a color that connotes danger. Its use in the Chinese films, therefore, builds the idea of impending danger because the viewer associates the color with its cultural meaning.
Character is also an element that builds to horror. For example, in the film A Tale of Two Sisters, the ogre character addresses the girl in rude language and the girl feels frightened. Such characters build the subject of horror in the Korean films.
The viewer has also observed that sound effects contribute to the horrific feelings. When danger approaches, the films use high-tempo sounds. The films also combine natural and artificial sounds towards achieving horrific feeling. The sounds are effective in creating horror because they combine with the visual effects of the films to build suspense and the feeling of fear in the viewer.
Works Cited
Buchanan, John. “Rigor Mortis,” 2013. Web. December 9, 2014.
http://movies.tvguide.com/rigor-mortis/review/668893
Davis, Courtney. “A Tale of two Sisters: Mise-en-scene,” September 21, 2009. Web. December
9, 2014. http://daviescqegs.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/mise-en-scene-a-tale-of-two-sisters/
Gwoemul, “The Host,” 2006. Web. December 9, 2014.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gwoemul_2006/
Kim, Gahee. “Old Boy: mise-en-scene and composition, visualized metaphors,” November 19,
2010. Web. December. http://www.papercamp.com/essay/18729/Old-Boy-Mise-En-Scen-And-Composition-Visualized
Kofi, Outlaw. “I saw the Devil: Review,” March 3, 2014.
http://screenrant.com/i-saw-the-devil-reviews-kofi-102366/
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