In the Shadows

I think one of the best techniques in film for creating a sense of foreboding is good use of shadows.  The Pica Towers shorts really used shadow well to heighten the sense of unease throughout the shorts.  In short films, there’s so little time to set  a mood, and the long shadows in both “The Good News” and “Hounds of Flesh” really do a good job of setting up the fact that the plot behind these cute little robots is actually quite sinister.  I thought the way the long staircase in “Hounds of Flesh” was shown with huge shadows going up the wall behind it was particularly creepy.  The high contrast black and white was also really effective in creating this really eerie mood.  It reminded me a lot of the movie “Sin City,” it gave the shorts a very gritty, dirty feel, like Pica Towers was a seedy place that you really didn’t want to be.

These three films also posed a challenge for storytelling since they are short and the characters do not ever speak.  The filmmakers achieved a cohesive story line by taking a comic book approach to the shorts.  All of the main plot point could have been still frames, the motion wasn’t what was important, but rather what the audience was seeing.  The details were sometimes away from the main action which makes it more interesting visually.   Sometimes the story would be hidden in the foreground, like when the little dog was lapping up the blood from the dead TV set bible-seller in “Hounds of Flesh.”  Other times the story was in the background, like robot machine hanging in the background of “The Good News.”  None of the stories were really resolved, which worked with the uneasy mood of the three shorts.

Overall I really enjoyed watching all three short films.  They were really clever, well-done and interesting; like Pixar shorts gone bad.