Expressive movement unit 2

Metadata

The dialogue between the Sergeant and Todd is characterized by the slowness of gestures and movements and the length of the pauses in the conversation and fluctuates between slackening and underlying tension. The concentration on the figures’ relationship and behavior is created by the dialogue shown, after a slight track in, in one fixed shot, closely framed in front of the pond in the background and the surrounding jungle vegetation.

Todd’s slowly rising position and the Sergeant’s somewhat raised, slightly cramped posture both intimate the hierarchical relationship and create the two poles of physical exhaustion and latent underlying tension. Noticeably long pauses dominate the conversation after an informal greeting and a mention of the earlier relationship. At this mention their eye contact is interrupted, Todd’s gestures become uneven and the Sergeant plays insecurely with a tuft of grass. His offer – made in multiple conjunctives (“If, as and when we get out of here... I might have a loss of memory.”) and its refusal renew their eye contact. This contact is however connected to an eerie stillness and the protracted pause between “Don't forget a thing Sarge…” and the final quickly-spoken threatening sentence: “I never do.”

In this way this shot creates an attempt at becoming closer in the absolutely reduced movement between the two figures – between a tendency to sink down in exhaustion and to uphold an underlying tension – and interrupts it abruptly.