fears of the dark

Peur(s) de Noir (2007)

This animation is a French film in which we watched one of the sections (e.g. a short story within). Although this film was originally made in french, the translated version is still easily understandable due to not having any narrative except for sound effects and music. These sound manipulations add the 'horror' and tension to viewing the clips as the graphic content itself isn't particularly scary. The noises add a psychological terror as your mind over emphasises the dangers portrayed. 

In the clip we viewed, the man in the centre of the above poster was the character who's fears were exposed. He was exploring a darkened house in a typical 'haunted house' manner; the lights were not working, there was a 'spooky' basement, doors that locked behind him, and what appeared to be no exit. 

The way in which this snippet portrayed the darkness of his environment was very clever. The whole animation was in black and white; but using these tones the animator was able to still convey a scene effectively as light and shade added depth and a realness to the 2 dimensional illustrations. Again this could be argued to be even more improved due to the brains capacity to 'fill in the blanks', e.g. in one instance a black bottle rolls across a black floor, but this is only evident due to the very small white label rotating and rolling across a pitch black screen otherwise. 

Adding to the fear in this snippet is the size and build of the character they have created; the large stocky man is not what is initially thought of when picturing a fearful individual. Therefore when this character seems 'jumpy' or anxious it seems heightened to the audience in a stereotypical view that men wouldn't want to appear scared.

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