Expressive movement unit 1

Metadata

Like a prologue, an animated map situates the submarine both topographically and, by the name of the home port, Pearl Harbor, historically. The two shots that follow create, through a camera pan, a five-person talk session that pushes the soldiers’ bodies closely together in the frame. The dark shades of grey and the somber content of the discussion—how to best stab the enemy—create an atmosphere of physical beleaguerment.  

Although this atmosphere is intensified and becomes actual threat by the Sergeant’s sudden stranglehold from off-screen, the projected one-on-one fight that culminates in a simulated thrust of the knife, lively facial expressions and changing light intensity creates an ambivalent mix of actual threat and the playful transformation of fear. Not until the second cut to the Sergeant are the soldiers’ bodies freed from the close framing of the image. A small joke cleanses the preceding projected one-on-one fight from its frightening elements and at the same time creates a transition to the socially relaxed togetherness of the soldiers.