Wild Tales: Representations

“How far do each of the films that you have studied represent key characters in ways that reinforce or challenge the audiences expectations?”

Plan:

Introduction – overview how men and women are reflected in how Romina and Ariel act, then describe how the way they act reinforces our expectations but goes on to challenge them later on.

1 – Describe how Ariel and the chef is represented in a way that reinforces our expectations.

2 – Describe how they are represented in ways that challenge our expectations.

3- Describe how Romina and Ariel’s mistress are represented in ways that reinforce expectations.

4 – Describe how they are represented in ways that challenge expectations.

Conclusion – Summarise previous points and explain, link to overall question.

Version 1:

Wild tales represents key characters, who are used to symbolise the groups of men and women, in ways that, at first, reinforce audience expectations. However, as the film goes on, these representations change in ways that communicate themes of revenge and taking power by challenging audience expectations.

As one theme of the wedding sequence is gender inequality, the key male characters in that scene, Ariel and the chef, are at first represented in ways that reinforce the audiences expectations. Through performance, Ariel is extremely happy and exited during the wedding, with a wide grin on his face and happily greeting his friends. He carries himself in a proud and confident demeanour, and we see him touch his mistress, which shows his audacity and belief that he can get away with anything. His power complex and smugness are emphasised by Romina’s hopeless and distraught expression, amplifying the psychological damage that his actions have had on her. His costume is also extremely straight and tidy, showing his obsession with his appearance, and he is never shown at eye-level when in frame with Romina, showing his how he has taken advantage of her and gotten away with it. The chef is different, and at first challenges the audiences expectations by being kind and comforting to Romina, as seen in how he is kept eye-level; with her when in frame together, but his seemingly sentimental attitude is shown to be a rouse when he is seen leaking his story to his co-workers. This representation reinforces audience expectations of the character as he is a male, and the lack of many other male characters in this scene and Ariel’s affair show that a clear theme of this story is negative masculinity and gender inequality.

As the story goes on though, Ariel begins to be represented in a way that challenges audience expectations. His proud and perfect demeanour fade away into panic as he pleads with Romina to remain happy until the end of the wedding, and his facade completely cracks and a terrified expression comes onto his face. He also leans down as he pleads with her. This reflects how she is already bringing him down to her level, and he is spiralling in his attempt to maintain his perfect appearance, and is willing to try and emotionally manipulate her, like the chef does, to make it seem like he has a perfect and happy marriage. By the end of the story, Ariel has completely lost all composure, letting go of his proud and independent masculine demeanour, being cradled and comforted by his mother. He is below Romina’s eye level here, his previously perfect uniform is disheveled and he is is in a mess of tears, showing that she has completely won over him and he no longer has any power over her, and she has taken revenge. This representation challenges audience expectations by contrasting how we expect Ariel to act from the way that he is built up as a proud and masculine figure, certain in himself and exploitative of his wife’s ignorance. So, seeing him represented as weak and fragile challenges our expectations.

Romina, a key character, is a reflection of women who are exploited by un-faithful husbands, which creates the expectation of her being timid and weak. She is at first represented in a way that reinforces the audiences expectation through cinematography and performance. At the beginning of the scene, Romina is extremely exited and has an almost plastic grin plastered onto her face. This obviously exaggerated emotion portrays her as ignorant and perhaps even gullible, which we would expect from how Ariel also acts like a stereotypical male. She is also represented as hopeless and emotionally devastated when she realises that her husband has had an affair, as she is shown in an extreme close up, with an panicked expression and everything else other than her face out of focus, reflecting her feeling of isolation and helplessness in that moment. This represents Romina as a weak and fragile character, and continues as she flees the party in a desperate panic attack, crying and breaking down as she runs away. This makes us sympathise with her as she is obviously distraught, but also reinforces our expectations, as so far she has been represented as naive, so an emotional shock like ethics would have such an expected impact on her.

However, Romina is also presented in ways that challenge the audiences expectations, to a large extent too. As Romina threatens to ruin Ariel’s life on the roof, her sadness transforms into anger and fuelled obsession as she screams with hate, and looks down her nose at him. Here, Ariel is also shown to be panicked and terrified by her outburst, showing that she is growing to stand up for herself, surprising the audience as it is such a sudden change in the couples power dynamic. As the wedding sequence continues, Romina assumes more influence over Ariel, which challenges audience expectations to a large extent. She is kept above his eye-level, reflecting her new-found power over him, and her previously beautiful and white dress is now spattered with blood and her make-up ruined by tears. This change in her previously perfectly organ used demeanour and appearance reflects her change in personality and sudden obsession with revenge, abandoning public image in favour of ruining Ariel’s life as he ruined hers. This sudden seizure of power and independence is a drastic change from the giddy and over the top performance and perfect appearance of Romina at the start of the story challenges the audiences expectations of how Romina acted as a character.

Wild Tales represents key characters in ways that initially reinforce audience expectations, but as power dynamics change and the themes of the story become more clear, our expectations are challenged to a far extent. Characters fit or stray from audience expectations through cinematography, performance and mise-en-scen, and these reflect the changes in their character from how they were introduced at the beginning of their arcs, and from that they are represented in ways that heavily reinforce audience expectations and ways that suddenly challenge them as a character progresses and changes.