ET 2: YOURSELF AS AUDIENCE

When I was required to watch the French short film, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” last Friday for my Film 101 class, I didn’t get my hopes up too much to be entertained. After all, it was my first time ever watching a silent film and watching it at 8a.m. didn’t help either! However, by the end of the movie, my perception on silent films completely changed and I will tell you why.

At the start of the film, the lead character, a Civil War prisoner was about to be hanged.  Frankly speaking, during the first 5 minutes of the film, I was bored but the moment the lead of the film had a flashback of his wife and kids, the film gained my attention. A series of questions started to running through my mind. I was puzzled and wondering whether the lead was either a good or bad guy. This is because, the sadness on his face when he realized he would never see his family again, really saddened me. It got me thinking, that no man who loved his family that much, could ever commit a crime that would result in a death penalty. That is when, I decided that the soldiers around him were evil guys despite the fact that I did not know the true story that led towards the hero’s death sentence. Also when the hero started crying

When he was dropped into the river, I was so happy that he could free himself from the bindings of the ropes on his legs and hands. I didn’t care that the scene did not really make much sense because surely the soldiers would have tied strong knots on his leg and hands making it impossible for him to release himself. Even if he did, he would have run out of air and drowned after all. Nevertheless,  I was extremely excited when the hero rose to the surface of the river. My first reaction was for him to swim away from the area as fast as possible. However, what came next really confused me! The hero actually waited for the soldiers to fire gunshots towards him and then only did he swim away. Naturally, if it would have been in real life, anyone  in that situation would have impulsively tried to disappear from the sight of those evil soldiers as fast as possible. Nonetheless, I was well aware since it was a film, directors often portray the main star of the film as being macho and have the ability to defy all obstacle he faces!

What came next was an intense scene of chasing and shooting. I was rooting for the lead to not be shot by the soldiers and if I was watching the film in my own living room, I would have practically screamed for the lead to swim faster and faster! Only when he reached the river bank, I heaved a sigh of relieve. However, the shooting did not end there as shots were randomly being fired towards the direction of the hero and he had to run for his dear life. I could feel the tiredness and feeling of helpfulness of the hero as the actor emoted his expressions very well. When the hero finally reached a tunnel of blackness, I started to have a hunch that he might be dreaming because it looked creepy and I was afraid that the hero was going to fall into a hole of nothingness. Alas, when he walked towards the tunnel, his house and wife appeared. I was about to cheer for the hero as he finally was reunited with the love of his life but what came next totally deceived me. It appears that it was all an imagination and the hero was hanged to death after all by being dropped halfway from the bridge and not all the way into the river.

All in all, at the end of the film, I was shrouded in mixed feelings of sadness and foolishness of being fooled by the film. This is why, I have come to realize that silent films  are as entertaining as modern films we have today and  in future, I am looking forward to watching more movies as such.