Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Cave of the Yellow Dog
In Cave of the Yellow Dog, Byambasuren Davaa uses a very specific type of filmmaking to convey her message. Do you feel the documentary style of the film is useful in conveying the message and the plot? Choose a five-minute scene and analyze through one cinematic element (e.g. editing, cinematography, sound, etc.) to support your choice of whether it is effective or not.
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The Cave of The Yellow Dog is a 1997 mongolia documentary centered around a Mongolian family of nomads and their traditional way of life and the rising call of the City. I think the documentary style of this film is useful in conveying the message and plot due to Eisenstein’s theory of a montage, Jeffrey Grieger goes to explain his methods, “he chose not to depend on trained performers to engage the audience through their acting abilities. That engagement came from montage” (Film Analysis, Jeffrey Grieger and R.L. Rutsky), Eisenstein’s theory of montage goes as follows: two shots juxtaposed together create a third meaning. Jeffrey also states, “Instead of achieving catharsis through the story of an individual character’s struggles, catharsis occurs though the effect of film form, montage itself”. Hence, the documentary style of portraying this film and showing us the family’s struggles through film language purely, has a much larger impact than it would if the character’s struggles were simply told to us.
ReplyDeleteThe mongolian steppe is known as one of the most untouched places on earth, people living there are known as its forefathers. With globalization occurring throughout the narrative of this film, the central theme is shown as a family being stripped from their ties to nature in order to conform to globalization. This theme is shown through the juxtaposition of shots of the family, then of long shots of the natural setting, through editing corresponding to Eseinstien’s theory. In the beginning of the scene where Nansal is travelling by horse further into the mountains, we see shots of nature juxtaposed with shots of the daughter. This scene is pivotal because it establishes the connection the Urjindorj family has to nature. The scene begins with a long shot of an overflowing stable of goats being opened, then pans and tilts to another long shot of Nansal on a horse while her mother is telling her to be careful on her ventures. This shot carries importance because it conveys the close connection Nansal carries with the nature that surrounds her family, they are the ones who free the goats and while doing so they are of the same space in the frame which makes them appear as equals, and the juxtaposition of the beginning of the pan showing only elements of nature and the end of the pan showing Buyandulam and Nansal intertwined with the now free roaming animals shows us they hold high respect with nature and view objects of nature as equals to themselves. Cut to a close up of Nansal calling for Zochor, the long shot from behind that we see after this is of her and Zochor, the same size in frame, showing they're equal entities in the world but because the girl is placed at a higher level we see that she is of higher power for this section of life. When the juxtaposition of shots is analyzed it is evident that the central implied meaning is to show equivalence among the Urjindorj family and nature, but it also ties into the grandmother’s speech about reincarnation towards the middle of the film. This scenes importance is shown by its commitment to the Extreme close up and by these extreme close ups placed next to each other in this scene it is easy to draw theories on the film's entire meaning, and inescapable to include this scene in an analysis of the film's meaning as a whole.
The Cave of the Yellow Dog is a Mongolian fable turned film about learning life’s limitations. This documentary style movie is centered around a Mongolian family of nomads who travel the countryside farming, and live off of their livestock. Although this film is fictional, the style of camerawork and storytelling is documentary, which makes it feel like it is telling a true story. I feel as though this documentary style editing is very significant, and certainly is useful in conveying the moral of the plotline. Although there is no voice over narration, the use of handheld camerawork, montage theory of editing, and lack of sound design leads to a depiction of documentary style film. This technique affects the viewer in ways that purely telling the story with a more hollywood blockbuster style film would not.
ReplyDeleteThe scene in which I chose to analyze is the last one, in which the family leaves their youngest child alone by accident in the field. The cinematic elements of this scene are very interesting, as the culmination of the lack of plot all comes together into one vaguely climatic scene. The use of quick cuts, long shots, and establishing shots helped the viewer to piece together that Nansal had not been paying attention to her little brother, and therefore left him alone in the field while she was leaving her dog, Zochor. The element I found most interesting in this scene was definitely the use of wide angle shots and combination of landscape shots and close ups. This contributed to this scene feeling the most Hollywood-esque cinematically, because of the building suspense. Parallel editing especially helped with this, showing the father on his horse running towards the abandoned child, and Zochor breaking free from his ties to help the kid from vultures.
With "Cave of the Yellow Dog" Davaa uses the simple and natural form of documentary filmmaking to craft a personal, heartwarming, and beautiful story of a family and their newly found dog. Key to strong documentary style filmmaking is the prowess of cinematography through shot type and shot length. Different from how a drama might be shot, documentary film focuses on not only the characters and their actions, but the space surrounded an action, the expressions shown around them. Not to mention the environment of documentary style films is much more important and often shown in wider shots in these films.
ReplyDeleteWith this is in mind, the cinematography in Davaa's "Cave of the Yellow Dog" is reminiscent of this classic style. For example, the scene following Rochor being brought home by Nasal, the interactions between both the do and her parents and Nasal and her parents are shot so beautifully. In the case of the sequence with the mother, shots feature the hills rolling far into the background, taking up and majority of the frame. Shots like this one occur often in this film, and they show the important of the land and living of the land to this family of nomads. Without accounting for the environment at all times, viewing the family live is pointless. I think Davaa tries to show the literal "bigger picture" as much as possible. In this there is also an encounter that takes places between Rochor and the father and then between Nasal and the father. This entire sequence of actions and multiple encounters is shot in one continuous take. There is nothing special about this scene on the surface, which is representative of the film as a whole. This is just one normal, nomadic family living in Mongolia. however, the lessons that can be taken from sitting back and looking at their actions and lives in a large scale, can help us take a step back and enjoy life more.
The Cave of the Yellow Dog is a very unique film that is one of the first to use documentary style filming to convey a theme. The scene that I chose was a scene that stuck through the whole movie. It is the scene where the old woman is telling the original story to the young girl. The documentary style allows for a closeness to the characters that cannot be felt in traditional filming styles.
ReplyDeleteThe lighting in this scene is all environmental and natural. There is nothing added onto create effect. The effect is created because everything is real. In the beginning of the scene as the girl follows the dog and approaches the hut the sky is gloomy and it creates an ominous mood naturally. The entirety of the scene is grey and this plainness creates a realistic atmosphere that puts you on that landscape. Nothing about the movie looks exaggerated the colors are dull and realistic and the grey creates the essence of dew as if you are in that landscape. Lighting is not targeted to emphasize any facial features emphasizing the theme of the young girl being normal and un-extraordinary. She uses extreme close up to get us more into the story and it makes us more emotionally connected to what is on screen. When you can see the wrinkles on somebody's face and the slow movement of their skin when they change expression you feel a strong connection with them. The only other person you look so closely at is yourself and then you find it easier to connect emotionally with those characters. It gets down to the roots and gives us the feeling that we are all the same race and have the same feelings.
When she begins to speak we can hear the cracks in her voice and there is very little outside sound other than whalen she moves around the room. We hear the sound of the hair breaking when she brushes her hair. We hear the clanking of pots when she is preparing food and when they eat we hear the slurping and the digestion. We hear what we would hear if we were doing what they are doing, as if we were in the same room. Her voice is rough and the sound is emphasized so we can feel her voices movement inside us as we watch the movie. This is characteristic of a documentary style script because the sound is naturally enhanced and now leveled out. We hear a natural wave of intense and soft instead of leveling everything at the same level as a traditional movie would. There is no use of music to fill the blank space of sound. Instead the absence of sound fills us with a feeling of serenity.
In "Cave of the Yellow Dog", Davaa utilises a documentary style to convey her meaning. This is extremely effective, as the point of the film seems to be to portray a family who lives in the past and juxtapose that with the modern world. The only real "plot" factor is the dog, and even then the film flows more like a documentary. It follows the life of the family, and all of the cinematic aspects are somewhat understated.
ReplyDeleteThe scene I chose for this is the scene where the young girl is hiding from a storm with the elderly lady, who teaches her about reincarnation. This is an incredibly understated scene, especially in terms of lighting and sound. The lighting is soft and dark because the girl feels safe, despite the storm. There is a shot of rice pouring into a bowl which feels totally organic - it seems like a documentary crew is in the house with the two. The whisper of the rice falling into the bowl mimics the rain outside, seeming peaceful and natural.
The documentary style Davaa uses to make this film is a very effective device. It gives a more accurate view of the people of this area, and we feel a closer connection to the family because it seems like they're the subjects the documentary is tracking. The documentary feel juxtaposes their nomadic life with our 'normal' metropolitan one and also makes it seem like it was not planned out to be a story, but to reflect their way of life. It not being made as a story makes us closer to the characters and what they go through.
ReplyDeleteI chose the scene where the girls are asking about past lives and the older woman uses the rice as an example to show how difficult it is to be reborn as a human in your next life. The lighting and colors in this scene reflect the conversation they're having. It's very spiritual and mysterious, and the screen is dark with vibrant colors. The darkness contrasts with the rice, drawing our attention to the failed attempts at getting the rice to balance on the wooden pick. The lighting builds up to the point the old woman makes, that this is why life is valuable. If the lighting were brighter, it would not make the same impact it does.