TASK 2: Power of Childhood (2014)

The Power of Childhood is a Russian film about a father who is set to be executed and must hide it from his son, who appears just before the execution, by pretending that they are playing. The film shows how the love shown between the father and son changes the executioner's stance, and makes him struggle to go through with his duty.

When the child comes running in, the camera becomes very shaky and as a result it is difficult to understand which direction the kid is going in. This helps to emphasize the confusion and panic that he feels. The peasant is also very forceful in how he treats the child, and this tells the viewer that they are the antagonists of the short film.

When the father and child are reunited, the camera tracks the peasants, and we see their expression is that of empathy and sadness, and without dialogue shows the audience that they understand the love between them both. The sun also creates a lens flare on the camera, which could represent hope and the good inside those about to execute the policeman.

When we see the boy shouting at the executors, an over the shoulder shot is used. This is to give the audience some perspective of where everyone is in the scene, and also informs them that the child is directing his dialogue directly to the peasants. We see that they themselves stare at the child completely different to the father, as he is innocent.



The next shot is going into the dream sequence. We can see that it is very washed out and the colour intensity has increased. This is used to emulate what a dream is like, and to show that it is idealistic. We see in the sequence that lots of the adults are either replaced by children, or act like children and it shows that maybe the adults still haven't lost touch with their childhood.

We see in this shot that the man holds the child up. This gives the child power as it shows that he is no longer speaking up to them, and it could represent that they have started to listen to him. The shot is a medium close up, and this intentionally cuts off the bottom half of both characters so that we don't see that the child is being held up by his father, in order to give power to the child.