The Arrival (Montanarini, 2016)

Narrative:

A woman, named Anna, arrives at a café and can't decide whether or not to get a caffeine or decaf coffee as she waits for the man that accidently got her pregnant. At first she seems adamant to not have the baby and that he has no right to decide what to do with her body, but continues to worry on whether or not having caffeine is a good idea since she's pregnant. Getting lost in thought she imagines what the baby might be like. After going over what might happen if she keeps the baby, she decides to order a decaf instead, suggesting that she's going to keep the baby.

Representation:

The film primarily focuses on motherhood and the bond between mother and their child as they discover that they are pregnant. Exploring the life changing decision women have to go through when ending up unexpectedly pregnant. Motherhood is such a labouring task and this short film certainly highlights one of the many difficult decisions women have to face; whether or not to keep the baby, telling the partner whether or not they want to keep it, how will the child turn out.

Anna seems to be a middle aged women which highlights the pressure of having a child before it's too late, she even remarks to herself that she doesn't have forever and that she has a time limit until she can't have get pregnant and cant have kids. The pressure to have kids is society's expectation that women have to get pregnant.

Micro Elements:

Cinematography:

Cinematography was very interesting, as the film consisted of one continuous shot with no cuts.
The Camera was on a dolly, as the camera slowly moved into Anna's face, up until the end where she decides to get a decaf coffee instead which is when the camera pans out. As we get closer to Anna she seems to get much in her head about the situation, stressing about her future, the camera makes us feel this stress as we become much more intimate with her.
Towards the end the camera starts moving out as Anna relieves herself of the situation and starts to think positive thoughts, the camera she's this relief dissipating by being put back in the cafe setting and less in Anna's head.
As vignette effect is used in the start to focus the audience's attention on the main character. We almost feel what the character is feeling, coming in from the cold outside into this warm cafe setting.
The natural lighting is focusing on our main character Anna, are not focused on anyone else except her. The natural lighting also makes the scene feel cold and gloomy which tells us its set during winter time.
As we get closer to Anna the scene becomes dark and gloomy as a train passes the coffee shop, with very minimal lighting. we can see that Annas in a very dark place and how isolated she feels. As Anna stops panicking the light comes back as she starts looking on the bright side of this situation.

Sound:

At the beginning of the short film diegetic sounds of cafe are used to immerse the audience into the setting of the cafe.
We are focused on the non-diegetic inner monologue of our main protagonist with a voice over. This is done to show the frantic mindset that Anna is, she seems to jump from one point to another which shows how much this pregnancy is affecting her.

Mise en scene:

Anna is wearing a white sweater which makes her stand out from the other customers. She's who we should be focused on. She isn't wearing anything to extravagant which shows us that she's a very ordinary person.

Performance:

The actress doesn't say much out loud, she mainly communicates with how she's feeling with her expressions. her slight movements match up with her thoughts and we can see her physical reactions to them. As she gets more anxious, we can see her fidget more and get more jittery with her gestures. she seems to be very tense in this situation, and we are able to see the physical impact this is having on her, for example, as she's lost in thought she spills her coffee
As her thoughts get more positive we see her loosening up and she starts to calm down. Her movements start to slow down and everything starts to feel less chaotic

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