2&2 analysis - Alex

The title is what the audience sees first and is written on a chalk board which we will associate with school which makes it quite informal. The camera moves back from a close up shot of the chalk board to a long shot of the chalk board which means that now we can establish that the setting is a classroom which we can see by the setup of the room and from the children sitting and chatting in a casual manner. The on screen diegetic sound of talking and laughter is there so we can see that the boys in the classroom are having a good time, then the teacher walks in and the diegetic sound just stops and their body language changes completely because they all jump up. This body language suggests that they are quite scared of their teacher which gives a negative representation of the teacher and the way that he teaches.

Some of the boys go to sit down and are nervous as we can see from their facial expressions but the teacher makes a hand gesture that tells them to keep standing and they obey which is further evidence that they are scared of their teacher and it makes the audience think that there must be reasoning for this which creates enigma. The teacher is waiting for something to happen which we can see from his body language of him looking at his watch. 

Then a diegetic voice over starts to play and it is the headmaster of the school telling the boys that there are going to be some changes in the school and to follow the teacher’s instructions. He ends the speech with the dialogue “I know you will do both the school and your classmates proud” which is quite manipulative language and gives a negative representation of the power within the school. 

The teacher then allows the boys to sit down which they do and then he starts to write on the board. Before saying anything at all he writes the sum “2+2+5” and this causes a commotion with the pupils. The teacher silencing them and they obey with no arguments. He goes on to teach the class that this sum is correct, making them repeat it over and over again even though most of them obviously know it’s wrong which we can see through their confused facial expressions. Either way they are too scared to upset the teacher and repeat the sum after him. The sound of them saying the word “five” gets louder and louder until a boy raises his hand. The teacher addresses the pupil by “boy” rather than his name which gives a negative impression of the teacher and implies that students aren’t really valued in this society.

The boy questions the sum because he knows that two plus two is really four but the teacher’s response is “you have been told that two plus two is five” and also goes on to tell him that he will not question it. The boy stands up to address the teacher and calls him “sir” which we hear through his dialogue. This body language and dialogue shows us that the teacher has a lot of power over the students and is valued a lot more than them. 

The shot reverse shot sequence between the two expresses both of their facial expressions and you can see other members of the class getting confused and the teacher getting angry and stern. The teacher then says to the boy “don’t think, you don’t need to think” which sends the message that they only need to know what they’re told and only that. Anything else is wrong. I think this film is aimed at a wide audience to raise awareness for the power in the education system in some places and that sometimes they are being taught the wrong                                                                                              thing and have no choice but to believe it. 

The boy is silenced and sits down, however as the teacher tells them to write the sum in their books, another boy stands up and tells the teacher that two plus two is four. This boy is significant because he doesn’t ask to talk, he doesn’t ask if that is the right answer, he tells the teacher which tests his power and dominance. The teacher sees this as a threat and immediately says “who gave you permission to talk?” highlighting the fact that they need permission for the basic human right of freedom of speech. 

No matter how much the teacher tried to get the boy to repeat after him, he doesn’t and instead turns around to the rest of the class and tries to teach them the real sum. The teachers loses control of this boy so leaves the shot to go and get someone to back him up. This suggests that he is not as powerful as we thought at the beginning of the sequence. 

When the teacher leaves the room, some of the other boys express how scared they are of getting into trouble and that he is going to get himself killed. However the boy just doesn’t care because he knows he is right and he clearly doesn’t believe that the teacher would actually kill him. We can see this from his facial expression. The teacher storms back into the room which we can see from a long shot of the teacher and three students who are meant to be the top students in the school. They are unique from the other boys at the school because they’re uniform is different. They each have a red arm band added to their costumes

on their left arms. They do not speak unless spoken to and are rewarded for only believing what they are told which is an example of the dictatorship within this education system. Even in front of these students the boy refuses to accept that the answer is five because he diverges from the norms which shows his strength. The boy is called up to the front and is asked to write the answer to the sum on the board. After being asked to do this we see the “top students” change their posture to as if they were holding guns and pointing at the boy.

This symbolises how much pressure the boy is being put under to answer the question in the way that the teacher wants him to. The boy has the chalk in his hand to the board and quickly turns around to look at the three older boys holding imaginary guns at him, this is followed by a close up shot to create enigma and to build up suspense. Despite everything, he still writes the number four down and turns around to face the three boys holding gun stances towards him. The camera pans to focus on the three boys and then the boy who went against what he was supposed to believe gets shot and killed which we can see by the blood on the chalk board. All the boys in the classroom are shocked which we could tell from their body language as they jumped and their facial expressions when their jaws dropped. There is a ringing sound which I think is diegetic because it is showing us what everyone in the room can hear and gives a sickening feeling to the audience. The teacher uses the boy’s death to threaten the rest of the class which sends the message across that if they choose to believe anything other than what they are taught then they will be killed. He then turns to the dead body and uses the dialogue “get that out of here” he still doesn’t address the boy by his name or even as a person anymore which gives an extremely negative representation of how the education system is run and how the teacher abuses his power. It again raises awareness to the audience and shows people how a lot of places in the world have different societies to others.

 The three boys who shot the guns carry out the body at the teachers command and the teacher is left alone with the students once again like the beginning. Even though the chalk board is covered in blood, the teacher just rubs it out like nothing had ever happened so the boy didn’t get acknowledgement of his existence and it shows that the teacher has no remorse for what he just did and doesn’t care. He just looks annoyed that the blood got onto the chalkboard. After rubbing out the blood and chalk, he rewrites the sum on the board and really emphasises the number five at the end. The teacher then goes back to getting the class to repeat his beliefs over and over again which crescendos more and more.

Then as the camera moves towards a student sitting at the back of the classroom the dialogue seems to decrescendo as we see this specific student writing the sum down in his book and this is to make it more dramatic because although at first he writes down “2+2=5” he then crosses out the five and writes 4 instead, at which point the dialogue of the teacher and other students had faded out completely. This shows the significance of the fact that he has gone against the beliefs he is being taught despite death being at stake. This film is aimed at a wide audience from around teenage and older and we know this because of the disturbing imagery and difficult understanding in the film.