'Absence'...A Horror Through Camerawork

Welcome to my first post on this blog, where I hope you are incredibly pumped for both you and I to learn more about cinematography as a narrative all on its own. Let’s dive in, shall we?

I recently watched the 2013 horror film Absence. Let me just say, every slightly ‘scary’ or chilling scene is basically what the trailer is jam packed with… which isn’t hard considering only the last twenty minutes is when the whole plot started to pick up. I’ve linked it below so you can see what I mean, make your own interpretations/expectations of the movie.

The film is documentary style, meaning the camera is very shaky and the shots are very quick. We as the audience of this movie often times find ourselves looking at the ground or the video is cut at a certain point, which all contributes to the narrative and progression of the plot itself.

In the second scene of the film, just twenty seconds in, we feel like an outsider. The doctor is speaking to two of our main characters, Liz (the patient) and her husband Rick, and Liz’s brother Evan, who opens the film talking directly to us (the camera), records the hospital conversation. Their voices are hushed and we are placed in the corner of the room, as if we are not welcome and are not supposed to hear.

This feeling is even more evident as the doctor then speaks to two cops in the hallway. We simply cannot hear the conversation and we know we are in a way spying when the doctor and cops looks back at us as we and we hide ourselves behind a wall. This distant shot is comparable to one in The Wolf of Wall Street where protagonist Jordan Belfort hits his wife Naomi, though we only see it through a far doorway at the end of a hallway, which blocks our view. David Bordwell in his article “Understanding Film Narrative: The Trailer” uses that exact scene to display shot style as part of the narrative. “This choice lessens the impact of Jordan’s aggression. It gives us important information about the story action,” (Bordwell).

This hallway scene, like the Wolf scene, makes us feel unwelcome and like distant bystanders; we feel we should be doing or saying something, but its impossible. We are backseat drivers (like Evan literally is at one point - he's in the back seat recording and making us feel like the third wheel.) In this case, because we can’t hear what the doctor and cops are discussing, it lessens our overall knowledge of what our exact conflict is, though it provides us with important information about the story… the cops are involved, so we know that the disappearance of the fetus has fingers pointed towards Liz.

We in many, almost all, cases are Evan.

It’s incredibly important to point out who our eyes are. Throughout most of the film, we are Evan. Evan is recording this whole story for his college film class project, so we rely on his recordings, which are in many cases his eyes, as we are seeing things at the same time and in the unplanned way he is. We are living this unusual story with him. This filmmaking decision to have us follow in Evan’s footsteps is proof of style as a narrative. If this film was not documentary style, then our perspectives and interpretations would be completely different. We wouldn't be following the group of three on their journey, so therefore, we wouldn't feel as involved. We would simply be third person on-lookers. The camera/documentary-style gives an overall creepy, vulnerable feeling since we are being taken with the characters step by step.

There are often many times when we part from him, though. This is when someone talks directly to the camera for the purpose his class documentary. Whether it is Liz or Evan who are sitting down and talking to the camera, we take on a different view/role. We are not Evan, we are simply the audience to his film; we are an audience within an audience.

Evan interviews his older sister Liz as he thinks her story will make an interesting one. She was seven months pregnant when one morning, there was no more baby. In the beginning of the film we get prelude text about Cesarean fetus kidnappings accounting for 20% of newborn kidnappings, but ultimately we learn nothing else throughout the whole film. I find Liz’s interview shots incredibly telling. They feel almost like a therapy session, where the camera (in both senses) is very still and focused, and we merely focus on her emotions as she tells the story. The rule of thirds are present, validating that Evan is in fact a film student and that these scenes are set up to be information driven and organized (much of the film is constant unfocused movement). This is a time to focus on Liz and her past, since this is the only time we receive the backstory and, as this is ultimately why the three of them find themselves in a mini getaway vacation; as a distraction from the loss of the child. Liz is passive; she’s very quiet and the logical one. She falls to the background a lot, but we can’t forget this story is about her.

Though, I don’t find this “horror” film about the husband, wife, and brother in law, as much as I see that is focused a lot on Liz and Evan as siblings. They often times reminisce on their childhoods and the loss of both their parents when they were young teenagers, resulting in Liz having to raise Evan. Even then, I’m not sure what the overall message is supposed to be in Absence, but all I can think of is the absence of their parents making them closer.

While viewing I noticed multiple scenes where Liz and Evan were in a shot together. That's not the strange part. Each time they were both facing Rick, who was either not in the frame at all or there was just the presence of his arm. While this may be a fluke, this leads me to believe Rick is not as important as the other two, he's just a buffer to add some drama, as it’s worth mentioning that Rick and Evan have consistent tension throughout the whole film, with constant bickering and insults brushed off too quickly.

The fact that the siblings look to something/someone off screen that could have easily been included is unsettling to our very curious, ready to be frightened minds. Though, again, maybe we are not supposed to see since we may not be welcome. Personally, this still makes me weary of Rick. Why is he not shown as an equal?

Overall, we don’t leave this movie with really any resolution. Without giving away the ending and the only scary details, this movie falls flat to give an interesting story, like what our narrator Evan was trying to do. Instead I think our entertainment is in the camerawork. The story is slow, which some can expect from such a Blair Witch style film, though the shot styles and rugged shaky takes is what gives us the horror factor. This cinematic work is not scary in the typical sense, however, the uneasiness and unknowingness of what comes next in our homemade shots keeps us unsettled. Like Bordwell mentioned in his article, “by shaping our knowledge”, in this case our lack thereof, until the eerie interview scenes, “the narration throttles the film’s emotional appeal up or down” (Bordwell).

Works Cited:

Bordwell, David. "Understanding Film Narrative: The Trailer." Observations on Film Art. 12 Jan. 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.