Story Telling: Contextual Research [Short Film Review: The Karmen Line]

 ‘The Karmen Line’ (2015, Dir: Oscar Sharpe) was probably the most different of the three short movies that I have watched to researched my own screenplay but it has been one of the most fruitful ones. ‘The Karmen Line’ was written by female screenwriter, Dawn King and tells the touching the touching story of Sarah (Olivia Coleman), a mother and wife who begins slowly lifting off the ground from a fixed point, unable to get down. The film gained international acclaim - being shown at more than 18 film festivals, and being nominated for a BAFTA.

 I always think that the first line of non-conventional dialogue (EG. ‘Hi’ etc) in any production is one of the most important. The first line of ‘The Karmen Line’ is between Sarah and her daughter: “No to pineapple, then?”. The line comes as Sarah looks through her daughter’s school bag, examining her lunchbox and a graded mock exam from school and I believe the interaction provides audiences with an abundance of information about the relationship between the characters. This one small piece of dialogue also gives indications and hints to a lot about the character’s personalities, for example Sarah’s invasion of privacy. This then gives more of an unspoken importance later on when Sarah begins floating through her daughter’s bedroom.

 One of the most interesting things I picked up that King did very effectively was show the relationship of the characters through their actions. This is like what Steve Coombes mentioned in one of our lectures: using what we see rather than what we hear to establish an understanding of characters. For example, the opening sequence shows Sarah dancing and humming as she does house work and her daughter comes home from school. The pair say nothing immediately but Sarah has already prepared her dinner, giving a sense of routine. She also makes a mug of hot Ribena, a drink that says more about the mother daughter relationship than an average cup of tea. I think it is small considerations like this that make the relationships in The Karmen Line so realistic and believable. In my script re-writes I plan to focus on this idea of two characters establishing their primary relationship through a comfortable, wordless routine. I think this would be most effectively shown by starting my script in an earlier place, showing the characters walking up to and sitting on a bench and using their non-verbal communication and script directions to establish their relationship to the audience.

 A key aspect of The Karmen line I found especially effective was the lack of visual indicators of time jumps. As time progresses throughout the story, King uses a variety of methods to indicate this but sometimes makes no indicator at all, instead using Sarah’s progress upwards to show time’s progression – a very story specific method that eliminates the need for disinteresting text inserts. I could reflect this in my script through a variety of ways, for example showing early on that Will has rolled a set amount of joints for his day and then using the tin to highlight key movements in time.