Journey to Greenland

Explaining film analysis, even on a very basic level, to someone who doesn't know anything about it, nor cares about it, is kind of hard. My best approach in doing so is to compare a bit of the Netflix Original documentary Journey to Greenland that I watched to a more well known movie to this particular audience for this week, The Intouchables.

For starters, Journey to Greenland is almost nothing like The Intouchables, other than the fact that they're both French foreign films. The former is about two 30-ish year old guys, both named Thomas, who take a spontaneous trip to visit Thomas 1's father in a super remote part of Greenland. Typical to the movie genre, there is no dramatic structure, in that there is no rising action, no climax, no falling action, and not a single shocking aspect to the resolution. Could be boring, watching an hour and a half summary of some guys' trip to Greenland with no action, but the point of documentaries like these are actually to make you pay attention to aspects of film other than the plot line. For instance, I don't think there were more than ten shots out of the whole film that weren't draped with excellent lighting, breathtaking landscapes, or rich emotion from the immersion into a completely new culture. 

The types of shots in more dramatic movies, like The Intouchables, in contrast, kind of revolves around the type of action happening per scene. There are tons and tons of close up shots of both Driss and Phillipe to express their emotions in the moment and rarely does the audience see more than waist up. Generally, you can tell what's most important in a scene based on the type of shot and also the colors, among many other things. Check out the difference between the two screen clips from the movies:

 

Even though they're both long shots, they have completely different focuses. In the clip on the left from Journey to Greenland, the focus is clearly on the background because of the contrast in colors that really highlights the white of the snow everywhere. In the clip on the right, the colors are much more muted, leaving room for the small contrasts (i.e. white teeth in the smiles, shininess of the faces,  and shadows in the clothing) to be the main focus.

Hopefully this gives some insight to film analysis and makes paying attention to something as simple as the type of shot and colors introduced a little more interesting. And also is more motivation to rewatch the Intouchables/foreign films in general.