Review and critique at least one short film production

Summary

Swiss Army Man is a feature film made by the directors collectively known as Daniels. The film, in general, is filled with things the directors hate, for example, they don’t like survival films, they hate acapella music and they hate fart jokes. It’s my Favourite Because of how different it is compared to other films.

story

Swiss Army Man is a film about Hank who is stranded on a deserted island.

Bored, lonely and without hope he tries to hang himself. Failing to do so he finds a corpse washed up on the beach who springs back to life. With the help of Manny (the Corpse), they escape the island and go back to civilization. Throughout the film Manny is used as a Swiss army tool that has many different functions like Hold water, give breath and karate chop wood. Hank teaches Manny about life and they recreate Hanks memories using the environment around them.

 

Themes

It’s a very interesting journey with lots of layers and themes tied to the development of one man finally becoming comfortable with who he is. This movie is open to a number of interpretations a big part of it is looking at the movie from different viewpoints. Either that Many is a corpse that comes back to life a kind of magical creature or the entire movie is fantasy.

I personally believe that it is all fantasy but more specifically it’s a metaphorical journey for the Hank character. Hank is lonely and isolated from the real world and it’s because of Manny’s arrival that Hank finds a reason to go on. What Manny represents is the missing side of hanks personality that hank has repressed over the course of his life that’s why at the start Manny is dead. That side of hanks personality has all but disappeared leaving Hank an unbalanced mess. As hank get more comfortable with Manny, that side of Hanks personality is brought back to life. The main joke in the movie is farts, we learn in the movie to not hold them in because society tells you to but to let them out and be free.

Symbolically farts can mean anything, you holding in guilt or a secret, your passions or anything else that we’ve been told to just keep to ourselves.

Throughout the film, Manny is used as a Swiss army tool that has many different functions that helped Hank survive. Seeing that Manny is the repressed side of Hanks personality, he’s technically realizing that everything he needs to survive is already inside of him. The entire movie is a psychological journey of hank learning to process his personal problems and after learning to love himself he is finally comfortable with revealing his farts to the world, the repressed side of his personality has been overcome.

 

Editing

The cinematography is fantastic it’s a great mix of these really long beautifully composed shots that go for several minutes at a time and also lots of quick cut, fast paced action, fun, goofy scenes.

The film has been edited to feel like its all-in Hanks head, having the film & audio speed up or slow down depending on how quickly the characters talked.

The orange and yellow colours used in the movie are colours that are known to represent creativity and positivity.

Music

The music coincides with the rhythm of their words sometimes even turning into a musical.  The Daniels asked the composers to avoid instruments and make it acapella. The soundtrack in this Movie is like nothing I have ever heard. Most movies soundtracks are just in the background to make the scene better. The soundtrack in Swiss army man literally narrates what’s happening in the movie and the characters are also singing the soundtrack.

Impact

I love this movie, it is impossible to compare this film with anything else because it’s extremely original. The message in the movie is wonderful, its Beautifully Edited and the soundtrack is just something out of this world.

The filmmakers here have taken something very childish “Farting” and used it as a metaphor to describe things that we keep in, like things we want to say to people. A Swiss army man is a drastically original movie with two amazing performances a great soundtrack, great humor, and excellent direction.

Even though this movie is so strange it connects with all different kinds of people and I think it’s a special film that everyone should experience.

It’s a great film to experience to see a new unique style of filmmaking that isn’t being made anywhere else.

This movie has made me want to make films that have an impact on people, it’s made me want to make something that is new and original.