'Faith' film individual evaluation

  

Faith 

Individual Evaluation 

Faith is a feature length dance and crime drama. Set in London and Cardiff from 2018-2019, the movie is mainly focused on the themes of expression and transformation. Faith, a 17-year-old daughter of a London gang leader lives a stressful life, balancing her gang family and her passion for dance and performance. The movie follows her as she struggles to hide her passion from her crime orientated family whilst attending college. Tensions rise between Faith’s gang and another rival gang in London, causing more violence and pressure than Faith has experienced before. As Faith begins to take less time practising dance and performance in college, she creates a bond with her tutor Sam who is struggling with her own abusive relationship. Sam eventually convinces Faith that the best option for both of them is to leave London to pursue Faith’s passion for dance at a stage school. 

Todorov’s theory comes into the narrative from the beginning as Faith’s equilibrium is established, her following her routine in gang life. Disruption to the equilibrium comes when tensions between Faith’s gang and another rival gang rise, causing more violence and problems in Faith’s life. Recognition of this disruption is when Faith’s crime-oriented family life begins to affect her being able to attend college and continue her passion for dance. Her college tutor Sam notices and they console each other with their difficult situations. Resolution comes later in the movie when Faith and Sam plan to apply to stage schools and move away, escaping their lives filled with conflict. After being accepted for a scholarship, Faith continues practising dance and performing before secretively leaving London with Sam. A new equilibrium is established as both Faith and Sam have escaped London, leaving their old lives behind to go to a top stage school in Cardiff, allowing them to get away to London. 

The genre of this movie would mostly be a crime drama with elements of dance as this is Faith’s passion and scenes and montages focus on her improvement and transformation in dance throughout the movie. The crime elements of the movie are obvious as Faith’s family is involved in gang violence and crime which was inspired partly by the British movie ‘Attack the Block’. Dance is also used to symbolise Faith escaping her life of violence and crime, this theme is inspired by Billy Elliot. As the main characters are of working class, this is also taken from these two British movies. 

The location helps with setting up crime drama tropes as the film is set in working-class, run-down council estates in London, setting up gang activity themes as well as establishing the British atmosphere for the film. Classic London brutalist architecture will be shown and surround the characters throughout the movie, these buildings will make the movie recognisably British to the audience. 

My chosen sequence takes place as Faith receives a reply from a stage school in Cardiff on her scholarship and waits to meet Sam in a council park, setting up British themes and aesthetics.  Gang crime and violence is included in the film as well as the Metropolitan police. These issues are very relevant to the time and audience watching, making the movie recognisable British and realistic.The aesthetics of the film are created through the technical aspects of film as montages are used in the film and cinematography creates appealing images for the audience. For example, establishing shots of Faith sitting on the bench in the park would show the large brutalist build is behind he, also creating internal framing in the shot. 

Faith is nervous and can’t open the letter by herself, she calls Sam to hurry her. This scene shows the mirrored paranoia both characters feel because of the issues they’re facing in their lives. This is shown through visual aesthetics and a short montage of Sam as she walks through London to get to Faith who sits at the bench, flinching as people walk past. When Sam arrives, she opens the letter and finds that she has been accepted for a scholarship after her audition at the school. She then runs to Victoria’s house to tell her the news, excitedly knocking on her door and telling her that she’s been accepted into the stage school. The multi-strand narration of Sam and Faith in this sequence is helpful to show the similarities in both of their situations, showing further why moving away from their problematic lives in London is the best thing. 

I chose this sequence because it marks the first opportunity and change in the film for Faith and therefore allows the sequence to include more emotion and information about the main character’s feelings. It is clear that Faith and Sam have a strong friendship.  [deleted text] 

The screenplay also includes another character, Victoria, Faith’s best friend. Victoria supports her and is used to display what life would be like for Faith if she wasn’t involved in gang culture all her life. As Victoria is of a middle-class family and is unaware of what gang life is like, her life contrasts greatly with Faith’s and presents the life Faith would want. 

Applying Propp’s theory, Faith acts as the protagonist as the film is mainly told from her perspective and her character as she strives to better herself in dance and performance, practising intensely to improve. The main antagonists in the story are Faith’s family as they hinder her chances of pursuing her passion for performing and try to keep her in gang activity.  

The demographic for the movie would mostly be over 18s because of the violent/heavy themes yet it is low concept and the storyline of the movie is easy for viewers to understand. The target audience could potentially be mostly women due to the main characters being female and they contradict gender stereotypes for women. One way that these characters do this is how they’re not rescued /saved by men in their difficult situations.