Expressive movement unit 2

Metadata

The character choreography of this unit divides the exhaustion of the previous EMU into a stance of pain and a stance of paralyzed mourning by twice allowing different incompatible manners of movement to collide. On the one hand slowly crawling and suddenly jumping up, on the other hand the series of the dying man’s body positions and the witness’ paralysis.

A strange point of view connects the close-up of the Sergeant and the medium close shot of Feingold, as the latter first seems to crawl tiredly parallel to the group—in the middle of the battlefield and framed by dark trees as by a funeral wreath. When the Sergeant jumps up the coordinates change, so that Feingold now seems to be approaching the group directly. This disorienting découpage is intensified by the return of the shimmering strings that accompanied the vision of horror—the approaching jungle—in the preceding scene.

In the prolonged shot at the end, these insecure elements carry on in Feingold’s facial expression as he talks to the Sergeant, but no longer looks him in the eye. Afterwards—highlighted by Feingold’s movements and the camera pan as the last stage—a structured series of movements clearly delineated by short pauses shape the process of his death: walking past the Sergeant, sitting, staring in front of himself, slowly collapsing and finally tumbling on a musical chord. This series is accompanied by the paralyzed presence of the Sergeant, cut off on the very left of the frame. Not until and simultaneously with Feingold’s last movement and the musical signal does the Sergeant return into the frame and hurry to the dead man.