About a Girl

Directed by Brian Percival 'About Girl' was created in 2001 as a direct opposition to 'About a Boy'. It is a 9 minutes and 50 second long thought provoking piece. It tells a story of a young girl that is struggling with growing up in an environment which is not suited for raising children. She is forced to grow up too fast which the viewer can see by the constant on going dialogue from the protagnist. The film starts with a Britney Spears song being resighted by the protagnist, Britney Spears, suggests innocents and purity, however during the time of when this film was made, she was having the break down, so this could send a message to the audience that the protagnist is having a hard time. The constant breaks in continuaty tells the audience that something is not right, but this is one convention of short film, to be innovative. When she states "I'm not a kid" her father takes no notice, but because she says this as if to break the ice, it tells me that shes gone through something which would make her believe as to why she isn't a kid. Its obvious she finds her father a joke, because she speaks of him in a way which is extremely under-minding. As she sits out the pub on the bench, the camera slowly moves out which reveals all of the empty space around her, this connotes how lonely she feels. At 2:55 she is on the bus and says she is not that innocent, which also helps to identify reasons as to why you would believe her when she states she is not an kid. Even though she mocks her father, as the film carries on we see that she is extremely hung up on the "99" flake with the "hundreds and thosands" that her father bought her. The film then ends extremely abruptly, because when she throws the baby in the canal it shocks the viewing because it makes you wonder what she had to go through all alone.