Expressive movement unit 1

The interplay of the rising and falling dynamic of a mechanical rhythm on the musical level and simple parallels in the series of shots create a compressed, condensed image of travel, movement and duration.

A prolonged opening shot combines the machine’s movement, the agony of the wounded man and the expanse of the desert, whereby the vibrations of the camera following the tank in a close up are arrested when the tank stops abruptly, stressing its progress. Moving strings take up and eclipse the rhythm of the engine; the orchestral intensity of the music grows while the almost mechanical underlying sound remains the same.

Compression takes place by showing the tank from the back in the first shot and from the front in the last shot. In between the alternation of inside/outside contrasts the constant, unmoving interior of the corps with the constant mobility of the tank treads. This contrast is intensified in the beginning by extreme differences in lighting—the bright desert and the dark interior of the tank. However this difference is lifted with the shot of the approaching tank, now back-lit and in the shadows. With the annulment of this difference, the music slows down and fades out, the engine idles. This stage is over.