Brightness vs Darkness

For my post I wanted to talk about the importance of the mise en scene for In Th Fade. When we saw Nuri and Katja together at the beginning it was like a home made film. It was bright and even though we saw them get married in a prison, it was still set in a very happy tone. The walls were bright, it wasn’t gloomy and the music help set this happily ever after of a family they created after their dark past. But when her husband and son die from the bomb, the colors scheme changes instantly. It’s almost constantly raining, her appearance becomes very lethargic looking and we see how emotionally drained and vulnerable she becomes from everyone telling her what everyone thought her husband still was. The mise en scene is very important with help setting the tone of the environment and characters and letting us know when something is important. This film did a great job transitioning and meshing together that emotion and environment to the characters.

 

 

not always easy

This particular scene is a good depiction of kinda the overall theme the film, Almanya, portrayed to its audience. This film is about how a Turkish family immigrated to Germany as a result of the father’s belief that they will have a more prosperous life. When the family first arrived in Germany the children are shown to be somewhat hostile to the new ways and foreign to simple things such as a toilet and garbage men. Over time the children become more accustomed to the “German way of life” and somewhat forget some of the more Turkish traditions. This scene is showing the result of the children learning about Christmas and how most families in Germany receive gifts and put up a Christmas tree. The children explain this tradition to their parents and beg to also partake in this custom. The mom tries her best to do so for the kids but as you can see the children were slightly disappointed in the rather small size of the tree and lack of wrapping on the gifts. This rolls back around to the theme of the film which is mostly trying to highlight how difficult it is for immigrants to balance keeping their own traditions alive while also trying to assimilate into their new community.

Pulled in a New Direction

In this GIF Cenk is being taken away from his Turkish grandfather, Hüysein, and the rest of his Turkish family by his German mother after Hüysein suddenly dies during their trip back to Turkey. One of the main themes of the movie is Cenk’s question of whether he is Turkish or German. Hüysein is Cenk’s greatest anchor to his Turkish heritage, so when Hüysein dies, Cenk loses his strongest anchor to his Turkish heritage and with this loss will mostly likely drift towards his German heritage. This is symbolized in this GIF by Cenk being led further and further away from Hüysein and the rest of his Turkish family members by his German mother.