Tragedy

Class on Tuesday was very revealing to me about the different ways tragedy can play on our emotions and the various outcomes that tragedy can have. The most common way that I can think of is loss. This was particularly evident in the short film Small Hands in which death was seemingly occurring everywhere. The film also showed the loneliness that follows death to those who were left behind. Perhaps what was most interesting about this film was the variety of ways that the animals were killed and the the same sense of loneliness that followed regardless of how their partner died. It showed that deaths can be very different from each other yet exactly the same in the way that death affects the loved ones dealing with the loss.

The other film that i thought showed tragedy really well was Fridge. The lack of humanity throughout the film is shocking and appalling to anyone watching it, yet it also serves as a reality check in a way. While we see this and think that nobody would ever be so cruel as to leave the kid locked in the fridge, it also causes us to look in the mirror and question just how far we would go in order to see him set free. At times it seems that the man and woman are really trying to set him free, but as soon as they get the "air pipe" in the crack for him to breathe through you get the sense that they feel like they have done their part and somebody else should do something. This is where I see the true reality check because so often people are satisfied with doing just enough and stopping once they feel they have at least done their part. In this case the boy did survive and the film ended on a positive note, but unfortunately that's not always the case.