Film Analysis

 

Lovely Bones Film Analysis

I want you to close your eyes. Think of the nicest person you can think of. Someone like a family member, best friend, or that sweet neighbor that always brings a smile to your face. Ok, when you have that, open your eyes. What if i told you they were a murderer? You wouldn’t believe me. That’s what the Salmon family thought. But that was proven wrong, very wrong. The Lovely Bones is a suspense type thriller about the murder of a young girl, Suzie Salmon, but she goes by Salmon. I promise this isn’t a spoiler, if you watch the movie, you know within minutes who the killer is. The man who killed Suzie is her neighbor, George Harvey. After being killed, Suzie finds herself caught in the “in between”. It’s a world between heaven and earth. She’s stuck here because her killer is still on the loose, and she has to watch over her family until her killer is caught. Basically, Salmon has already died, and her dad has started looking for her killer. One day when Salmon’s dad was walking home, he came across Harvey’s house. As he starts to walk away from his house Harvey drops some sticks which makes Salmon’s dad turn around and then follow him to his backyard.

The director uses warm, bright, high key lighting when the camera cuts to his flashbacks to show that Salmon’s dad thinks of those times as “the good old days” and something that can never be brought back, but low key, dark, and dim lighting when in the real world.

He uses moderate lighting for a while in the real world and doesn’t really make it too bright or too dim, but the lighting switches to low key lighting after Salmon’s dad figures out the truth which reflects his thoughts and feelings about finding out his daughter was killed.

This clip did not only show good symbolic lighting though. It also shows amazing camera cuts and camera angles that invoke a sense of nervousness and anxiety in this film’s audience. An example is when Salmon opens the safe and the camera is shot from the point of view of the item in the safe which makes the audience uneasy and confused about what the item could be. Also, When Salmon is trying to get a message across to her dad the camera cuts back and forth to show that they’re both trying hard to contact each other.

There were not just visual film techniques used though. This movie is very heavy on all the sounds: diegetic sounds, non-diegetic sounds, and internal diegetic sounds which add a lotto the ambiance of this clip. We can hear haunting music throughout this clip which gives the audience a sense of unease and puts them on edge, waiting for something to happen. You can also hear the wind and birds at the start of the clip but after the dad starts to figure everything out everything goes quiet except for them talking, the music, and them building the cage (symbolizing him piecing together all his information just like he’s piecing together this trap).