SELFIE analysis - Alex

Directed by Ramchandra Gaonkar in 2015. 'Selfie' is a short film based on daily incidents faced by every common man. It portrays how we let ourselves get affected by what others perceive of us.

The film starts off with an establishing shot of a train going past which is to show us where our main character is. When the camera cuts to the inside of the train, the first thing we see our character doing is helping a stranger with a crossword which implies that he is a really nice character and this represents him positively. Then our protagonist gets up to answer the phone and when the other person fails to answer he goes to put his phone back in his pocket. As he does this he accidentally brushes his hand past the back pocket of the man in front.

 At this moment the man snaps at him and assumes that he is trying to steal from him which we can see from his body language when he transfers his wallet from his back pocket to his bag on his front. This gives a very negative representation of this

character because he is being racist and this really upsets the protagonist in our film.

As he looks around which we can see through an over the shoulder shot and a POV, we see people laughing and smiling up at him sarcastically which makes us assume that they were laughing at him rather than it being a coincidence. We can tell from his sad but confused facial expression and body language of him looking down at the floor that he is getting paranoid of being judged by other people which suggest that he may be used to people making racist remarks towards him.

As he gets of the train he is stopped and asked to show his ticket which is another negative representation of a character being racist. He feels as though he is singled out from everyone else due to the colour of his skin and the stereotypes that come with that, in this case that black people are often confused with committing criminal offences.

As the ticket officer asks him to do this, everything starts to move in slow motion through editing and it shows how paranoid he is and gives us an insight as to how he is feeling.

He looks at a reflection of himself in a taxi mirror which we see through a POV shot. His facial expression notifies us

that he is not happy with what he sees. This highlights to us that he is unhappy with who he is and may be a significant moment in the film where he decides to change.

From this we cut to a shot of him on a bus swatting flies away which implies that he is of the lower class, having to use public transport.

The diegetic sound crescendos as the camera starts to focus on the fly through a shallow depth of field. He smells his shirt because he thinks the fly is only flying around him for a reason. Then as he goes to kill the fly the non diegetic music booms (crescendos) and then stops for a dramatic effect which shows significance.

A fade to black transition takes us into a very low angle shot of the man so that we are looking up at him which gives the opposite impression that he has given us for the whole film, this time that we should look up to him.

We see him practising his English and this shows us that speaking English is a very high class thing to do which is why he is practising it on his own. We can also see that he has just gotten out of the shower which gives us the representation that he is self conscious about what other people think about him.

He clears the bathroom mirror and when he looks at his own reflection he gives us the same look that he gave us in the taxi mirror which again illustrates how unhappy he is with the person he is. He is almost stunned with his own reflection. As he continues to look at himself, flashbacks are shown which shows us that this isn't a linear narrative story because it isn't in chronological order.

The flashbacks all involve what other people think of him which show his awareness and paranoia of it. He tried to rub out his own reflection which is further evidence that he dislikes the person he is and almost like he wants to get rid of himself. Then as the non diegetic crescendos as he tries to wash his face, almost like he's trying to get a new one.

Another fade to black shows us our main character on a different mode of public transport which reminds us of his class and status. He finds out that it wasn't just him that was shouted at by that man at the beginning because he sees him do it to someone else which gives him confidence in himself which we see through his facial expression.

Towards the end of the film, the other man who got insulted by the antagonist says that he's known himself for 21 years and that the other man judged him from knowing him a few minutes. At this point the protagonist has a moment of realisation before the title is shown and the credits start to roll.