Fantasy Film Reflexive Account - The Man with the Shovel

Reflexive Account [Part 1] – Short Film Idea, Thoughts & Readings

I was able to get along with the week’s set readings and, right off the bat, inspiration was coaxed from me. With a Touch of Her Wand: Magic and Metamorphosis (Warner, M. 2014) was the starting point which reintroduced me to the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales Aschenputtel and The Juniper Tree (Brothers Grimm, J & W. 1812) both of which perpetuating the motif of the magical tree, encompassing nature. What particularly caught my attention was how, in a way, each story explores both sides of the proverbial coin; the hazel tree that sprouts in Aschenputtel over her mother’s grave proves fruitful in bearing her a dress for the ball; whereas, in The Juniper Tree its purpose is far darker upon releasing the bird spirit of little Marlene’s murdered brother to wreak vengeance on the evil step-mother. The idea came to me as a meshing of these two principles with one driving theme: the duality of nature.

My mind was racing with ideas and potential for the short film proposal. One which I have mulled over and have since become set on pitching before the group, involved a very simple premise, taking inspiration from the sources above and focussing in on that more typical fantastic idea of a magical tree. Thus, the story idea is as follows: A grieving child plants a twig over their mother’s grave; the griever is so distraught by this loss that they gouge out their own eyes (symbolising the loss of the mother with links to Freud’s trauma of losing one’s ‘phallus’); from the twig sprouts a towering anthropomorphic tree; at first the tree is imposing but upon witnessing the child’s pain, it reaches out to help; the griever regains their eyesight as the magical tree places their eyes back into their sockets and repairs their vision; but once the vision is healed and the child opens their eyes again, the tree has returned back to the twig it was before – positing the questions: was it real or fantasy and does it matter? In essence, the mother’s spirit imbues the tree with the wisdom and care to protect her child and guide them from the trauma and onward to adulthood, allowing themselves to grow.

Reflexive Account [Part 2] - Executing the Idea, Creative Techniques

The above idea is straight-forward in premise, but I hope, with the right execution, it will be shocking, strange, intriguing yet ultimately optimistic in its outlook. With regards to its execution, lately I have been very much inspired by films I have been viewing as part of the ‘Film History to 1960’ unit on this course, particularly those of the silent era of comedy with such works as Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. (dir. Buster Keaton. 1924) and Lloyd’s Safety Last (dir. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor. 1923); this preliminary thought became fully realised with Meshes of the Afternoon (dir. Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied, 1943) which grabbed my attention for its use of striking imagery without sound. From this, I in fact plan on shooting the film as a silent picture, placing more emphasis on the visual side of the storytelling. I do, however, know a music student who’s very much interested in film scoring and with their help I aim to have an accompanying soundtrack to the piece which can truly home in on the emotional journey and provide the “sound” for it. For the magical tree, I had ambitions of utilising stop-motion animation to bring it to life. This would be shot separately from the real-life portion during post-production on a green-screen and then overlaid onto the footage shot during production. It would be moulded from plasticine, so it won’t appear realistic but the surreal is in focus. I would intend on shooting the real-life portions at the same frame-rate as the animation in order to have some kind of continuity whilst generating a more unnerving, jolting, wholly surreal feel.

With Coraline, one idea struck me: using fantasy to critique fantasy. Incorporating this element into my story: the child cannot bear to be without a mother (a womb to ensconce within – again, Freudian imagery), thus drastically castrates their sight in a desperate bid to escape the world, to escape what they perceive is the misery, into a further, more hideous realm of sightless depression (emphasised by colour grading, turning greyscale). Yet, the mysticisms of nature guide the child safely out from the dark, to restore their vision and face the world with a new perspective, drive and colour – post-grief.

Reflexive Account [Part 3] – Discovering a Location, Arnos Vale Cemetery & Myth versus Fairy Tale

Once our filming groups were formed, I met with one member who stated how he had a location in mind: very close to his accommodation stands a large cemetery (Arnos Vale to be precise). There was no story, but that kind of location was surfeit of potential fantasy ideas and concepts to explore.

Fleshed out through in the seminars, with it being an element enmeshed with fantasy, is the notion of liminal spaces. To me, the graveyard is symbolic of the trinity of “pre-liminal”, liminal, and “post-liminal." It morbidly evokes the circularity of life. The liminal is a transitional state and the graveyard exemplifies this, bridging the connexion between the living and the dead through mourning and remembrance. The stages of life are also portrayed symbolically: the birth of life; the transformation, maturation of body and spirit; and life’s eventual decline. My imagination was determined to film in such a location, inspired upon visiting a graveyard recently; an image seared in my mind (one which I hope ends up in the film): a sapling adjacent to a tombstone. The juxtaposition was truly striking; it hearkened of a mythological notion: that the dead and living are inexorably intertwined; with what has perished, crossed the river Styx and passed down into Tartarus, they also provide rejuvenation for the earth above.

Myth and fairy tale – the relationship between these two genres were fascinatingly engaged with during our seminar group’s discourse: myths imbued with patriarchal roots of order, explanation and explicit structures of power whereas fairy tale embraces the chaotic side of the fantastic, linked with the feminine voice and used as a tool to uproot rationality and regime. As with del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2006) the protagonist of Ofelia utilises her fantasy to rebel against the fascist regime’s staunch commitment to oppression.

As put by Fry, myths are often “aetiological” in their nature (Fry, S., 2017). In my story idea, I had envisioned the protagonist being played by a female actress, coincidentally providing a more typical fairy tale “voice”.

From all this, I had in mind to create more of a synthesis between myth and fantasy in my story, both a rebellion against the constraints of rationality whilst also providing a solid foundation of explanation as to the nature of overcoming grief.

Bibliography:

Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud.

Warner, M. (2014). Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.

Brothers Grimm, J & W. (1812). Children’s and Household Tales

Jackson, R. (2005). Fantasy. Taylor & Francis Group.

Fry, S (2017). Mythos. Penguin Books.

Filmography:

Meshes of the Afternoon (Dir. Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied, 1943.)

Coraline (Dir. Henry Selick, 2009)

Sherlock Jr. (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924.)

Safety Last! (Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923.)

Pan’s Labyrinth (Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2006.)