Establishing shot : first appears to be a teen drama - opening shot shows teenagers on a school trip singing and taking photos. This idea of initially misleading the audience is used a lot in modern cinema as it enhances the shock factor when we do finally see that the film is a horror.
The camera tracks forward into the tunnel- the binary opposition between the daylight outside the tunnel where the students are happy and the darkness inside the tunnel, which has connotations of evil and mystery, alerts the audience to the idea that everything is going to change for the worse.
Text entices audience - ‘never before available in north america’ suggests that this is a really scary and potentially twisted film as it did not originally meet US media specifications. ‘One of the most controversial films ever made’ again makes target audience want to watch as it is aimed at people who do not like mainstream films and want to see something unusual and different - shows that it is a indie film and a cult film. The text also makes the film sound like something everyone needs to see - ‘the film that forever changed the face of cinema’ shows that this was a ground breaking film that had a huge influence over the industry.
The contrast between the happy and lively shots of the teenagers on the bus in the first scene and the shot of them either passed out or dead from the boy’s eye line match is almost unsettling for the audience because we do not know what has happened and our expectations of the film have been changed dramatically.
The non diegetic sound of a samurai sword moving through the air as the boy sees his friends asleep on the bus hints to the audience that there will be violence between the students instead of there being a separate antagonist.
The juxtaposition between the image of the school children and the non diegetic explanation of the situation is unnerving and subverts our initial expectations.
The woman in a gas mask subverts connotations - the connotations of a woman is that she will be caring, motherly and weak but she subverts this by punching the boy so he passes out. The purple of her uniform makes her stand out to the rest of the scene as not fitting in the ‘school trip’ idea. The gas mask makes her untrustworthy to us as she obviously is why the students are all unconscious but also we immediately do not trust her because masks have connotations of having a secret or hiding the truth.
‘Life is a game, so fight for survival and see if you are worth it’ is the first thing we learn about the situation and it is unnerving - similar to ‘Saw’ and ‘Hunger games’, the film seems to revolve around the idea that the people in charge do not value the ‘players’ lives and will not have mercy. Though this is only a brief explanation of what the students have to do, we as the audience gain a relatively clear understanding of the situation and the genre of the film.
The use of the colours red and green in the mise en scene (especially in the military style school uniforms) reflect the concept that this ‘Battle Royale’ is a government system - red has connotations of blood, anger, violence but, when mixed with the military green, reminds us of army documents (such as ‘top secret’ labels). The students are also all wearing metal collars that we can assume play a part in monitoring the game.
The opposition between the machine gun shots and the classical piano music is unsettling - the gun shots and loud music fits the violent images whereas the piano is contrapuntal and therefore unnervingly calm.
Reviews from other directors from similar genres and magazines clearly show the target audience - if you like Tarantino’s films then you will probably like this because he would have been inspired by it.
The shots shown with the classical music show how some of the students become insane during the ‘game’ because they want to live. One shot shows a girl smile manically at another girl before raising a shot gun. The shots also show that there is more to the game than we perhaps thought - two of the boys are not in uniform; students? soldiers? These boys are not on the bus in the opening shots.
One of the shots shows a boy wearing a bandana and smoking whilst lounging in a chair; this is confusing for the audience as we do not know why he is so confident despite having to fight for survival. We might also infer from his clothing that he is not like the other students.
Over the non diegetic music, the only sound is the diegetic gun shots - these are made louder and echo to show that this is a violent film but not necessarily in the horror genre. Having seen the film I would class it as a action thriller drama - it is unnerving and twisted but not actually scary or jumpy. The music cuts when the boy, going insane after killing his friends, starts manically laughing.
We see a boy in a suit instead of uniform holding a samurai sword - this links back to the non diegetic sound we hear when the boy wakes up on the bus.
We now learn that there are 42 students, 3 days, only 1 can survive and there is no way out - giving us this information in short, blunt sentences enhances the idea that this is all a game and makes us remember it. The music starts again but this time louder and more dramatic - the notes are lower and heavier.
We are shown a shot of a girl in school uniform holding a rag doll but she is covered in blood - this binary opposition between the childhood norms of school and toys (and then the girl’s braces when she smiles) contrasted to the very adult concepts of violence and real mortal danger is unsettling for the audience and is very memorable. The jump cut between the girl looking scared and then smiling manically at the audience reflects the student’s decent into madness and complete loss of innocence.
The couple running along the beach is powerful because we are reminded that these are al friends and couples in a school class and this makes the audience really consider how they would act. This also helps the audience understand what the genre is - there is more to the film than just the violence and this shot is used to show this.
In the last few shots we learn some more about what to expect from the film - the students all appear to have different weapons, they are on an island and, from the shot of the teacher/government worker turning around, we can assume someone wins. The speed of the montage is quite fast and so feels unnatural with the music which is heavy and quite slow in pace.
The two girls talking is a clip form the beginning of the film - “we will always be friends’ ‘I know’ is in direct contrast to everything else we have seen and so is unsettling because we know they will probably kill each other. There is a low drum noise as the shot jumps to that of one of the female students smiling and lighting her face from beneath to create shadows stereotypically seen as evil. The noise sounds similar to when a metal door, like on military sites, is closed or opened.
The title appears in simple font and in white on a black background. The ‘BR’ stamp is shown behind. The colours contrast as the white has connotations of purity and the black is seen as evil - the black is surrounding the white to show the evil will takeover? We can only see part of the stamp as if it is lit by a torch which reflects the last image of the girl and only being able to see part of her face as well as the idea that this is a secret government operation that is kept ‘in the shadows’. The calm piano music from the first montage returns as the production credits show - there is no tag line on this trailer. (tag line for the film was ‘could you kill your best friend?’ and was on the posters and theatrical trailer)
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