Eight - Daldry

Rachael Saunders

This short film is slightly confusing regarding the genre, there are some comedy parts to this, however, the ending is upsetting, as we realise why his Mum doesn't want him to play football, as his Dad, her husband was killed because of his love of the sport. So there are maybe two genres for this film, one being comedy, and the other, tragic. I think that the themes and issues of this film are the Hillsborough Disaster, the events at a football game, leading to the deaths of 96 people, leaving 766 injured. the mise en scene used in this short film are very British, for instance - the beach, this looks like a typical British beach, with the gray sky and windy weather. Also, two young boys sitting around, watching football or playing football, is very typical of young males in society.

This film doesn't give off too much, until the very end. The audience knows that there isn't something right, regarding the young boys father. If i was to make a short film, which used social realism, i would definitely watch this film again, as i found the way it was made kept me wanting to watch more. It gave certain information to the audience, not too much so we knew what the ending would be, but enough so that we would want to keep on watching.

The sound was very naturalistic, which made this film seem very realistic and added to the social realism aspect. I would again use this if i was going to be making film, with the social realism genre, as it would make it very clear as to what out chosen genre actually is.

The film is about the Hillsborough Disaster and how it actually affected people, the young boy is the son of one of the victims and he just wants to get to know the Dad he never met and in order to do this, he wants to do what his Dad loved - play football, his Mum however doesn't want him to do this as this is what killed his father. The family are from Liverpool, the young boy however mentions that they don't live there anymore. The family in this film seem fairly working class, and i think that it is very apparent that the family is a single parent family, with just one child, there is a very quiet, calm feeling about their home life, however there is always a sense of sadness whenever the boys mother is around.