Expressive movement unit 1

The dominant principle, made up of camera movements and Dane’s movements, is created as a horizontal movement on the level of shot composition and conveys the gesture of a state of exhaustion also constructed on the level of sound design and gestures. The sound of "Taps” on the non-diegetic sound track encompasses both the motif of mourning the fallen soldiers and Dane’s laboring body, digging one last grave, his own. The slight distortion of “Taps”, the extension of the notes, is complemented by vibrating high-toned strings, similar to the repeated staging of a mode of horror. The diffuse ground fog, completing the cemetery setting, stresses Dane’s subterranean position by wafting past his waist and brings him, already half-dead, nearer to his fallen comrades. At the same time, the suggested direction of the fog, from left to right, also creates an opposing direction to Dane’s monotonous shoveling movement within the shot composition as well as anticipating the slow begin of a horizontal pan along an x-axis. The image of a state of exhaustion is conveyed in the slow horizontal movement of the camera accompanied by Dane’s highlighted tired steps and a change in the music, which now conveys continuous suffering through its repetitive structure. The parallel camera movements, wafting fog and the continually repeating meter of a falling melody correspond in their temporal unfolding with the focus on the horizontal movement of Dane’s bowed posture, portraying an extreme state of exhaustion. This image of a state of exhaustion ends with a still frame, corresponding to Dane’s fall into a pond and the sudden sound of strings and marks the apex of a gesture of suffering. In the static of the flat shot composition, Dane’s lying position, surrounded completely by fog, foreshadows the dissolution of this figure (>EMU 3).Dane’s close monitoring of the jungle thicket in this shot anticipates the entry of the enemy out of the depths of the image in the following expressive movement unit  (>EMU 2). Dane’s pulling himself back together is highlighted on the gestural level and returns to the image of a never-ending martyrdom. At the same time, Dane is again placed in relation to the camera pans as a back and forth along an x-axis. The camera pan along the x-axis is again carried by the rhythm of the musical mourning march. However now there are also strings that anticipate a threat from the depths of the jungle. Finally, Dane’s gradual departure from the established x-axis forms the transition to the second figuration of the three-tiered scene that follows.