Trainspotting:Key scene analysis

Analysis and comparison of ‘Ralph’ and ‘Get off my land’

 The short film Ralph, which was produced in 2008 tells the story of 16-year-old boy who travels to Marseilles to see his best friend Clare to declare his love for her. Through this short movie, Alex Winkler explores the themes of love, isolation, rejection, power and redemption. This movie can be compared and contrasted with the short film ‘get off my land’, a story about a couple that are shot for supposedly trespassing on a man’s land, due to the similarities in the way they were film and the differences in the production and the themes that run through both of them.

The initial shot of both movies help to put the surroundings of the character into context and are both used as a way of foreshadowing the themes are going to occur in the movie. The first shot that we see in the film Ralph is a young boy stepping of a train my himself. The first shot is in this film is a wide shot, which show that as the boy is getting off the train, the platform is empty. From this it can be suggested that one of the main themes the Winkler is going to explore in this film is that of isolation. In addition to this the first thing that we hear in the film is an announcement on the tannoy in French. From this we can tell that the boy is not from the area that he is in. In comparison, in the first scene of Get off my Land shows the feet of people who are walking though muddy fields. The first set of feet that we see is the feet of woman who has on hiking boots and who is walking in such a way that avoids getting to much mud on her. However, the second pair of feet that we see is the feet of a man who has trainers on and who is stepping directly in the mud. From these foot movements, we can tell that the man that is walking is not a local of this area and so therefore may be unprepared or possibly in danger. This can be linked with the scene in Ralph when Ralph is calling different hotels in order to track down Clare and none of the hotel secretaries are able to understand him because they not understand English because the both capture unfamiliarity.  

Both the directors of ‘Ralph’ and ‘Get off my Land’ explore the theme of love and relationships through their short movies. Throughout the movie, Ralph the director explores the theme of relationships through the characters of Ralph and Clare, and the waitress and her boss. From the first moment that we are introduced to the waitress’s boss, we hear him shouting at her. Also, we see that at this stage that the boss is invading her personal space. From the way, he is speaking to her and his body language towards her it is suggested that the boss may have an unhealthy infatuation for the waitress, and that the director uses him as a symbol of male dominance in the work place and in society as a whole. As well as these two characters, the director uses the character of Ralph and Clare to explore the frequent occurrence of unrequired love. Throughout the film, Ralph talks about his love for Clare and how he going to tell her about how he feels about. Later on, when Ralph is talking to the waitress, he tells her about how Clare refers to him as her “little brother”. At this moment, the camera zooms in on Ralph and we are able to see his facial reaction of realization. Toward the end of the movie when Clare is introduced, we see that she is standing on what seems like a bridge. This is a symbol of how Clare is above him in terms of their “relationship”. This can be contrasted in the scene in “Get off my Land” when the man says to the land owner that he will “fight him for it”. From this phrase, we can assume that the man is trying to impress the woman, and that the man’s feelings towards the woman are a lot stronger for her than hers are for him.

Overall, I think that the directors of both short films had quite similar themes and ideas that they wanted to convey through their work. Both of these films follow the stories of characters within a short period of time and manage to engage the audience and to build connections between the characters to put forward their idea.