Analysis Of The Film Punch-Drunk Love

Cinematography during the opening scene of the film Punch-Drunk Love is a long shot framing of the main character Barry seated at his desk in a large open space, this emptiness presented an overwhelming personality of loneliness and exclusion in relation to Barry’s life. Following a telephone conversation, Barry sets off towards the off screen space and the camera follows panning left to right with an angled view. Ultimately, Barry is engulfed in a shadowy emptiness, this transfer in space also suggests elements of Barry’s life are lost in a mass of fruitlessness. On the other hand, there may be hope as Barry exits the black void, he is framed in a doorway of light to the outside world.

The mise-en-scene during Barry’s sisters’ party genuinely

conveyed strenuous emotional levels, but this brought to me the outside viewer feelings of empathy regarding Barry’s state of mind. The front door framed with a shadow and the mirror in the left corner is the opening of this experience and this experience produced a mirror-touch synesthesia for the viewer; Barry is visibility apprehensive and is apparently having feelings of anxiety and frustration. We follow Barry into the house with a medium close up shot to where the backs of the sisters are turned away from Barry, this shot is highlighting the indifference of the sisters towards Barry’s state of existence. Barry is at his breaking point once he is backed against the fine china cabinet, the off screen voices criticize Barry as if he was not in attendance, we recognize the frustration levels rise in Barry as the camera zooms in. With his emotions in an elevated state, Barry exits off screen to escape the position his sisters have put him in. The scene moves to long shot of Barry kicking the glass out of the sliding doors, which stops the action of the family at the dinner table. With the broken windows acting as frames of the scene; Barry’s sharp tongued sisters in one frame, Barry is facing and confronting his sisters in the next, and finally alone photograph of Barry framed and facing the audience in the last broken window, we the audience participates in the disgust Barry feels towards his belittling sisters.
A brighter or more positive cinematography function I found was the showing of the transformation of Barry’s world on the streets of Hawaii. The parade with the bright colors of the Japanese dancers and the level, panning of the camera from the parade to the police officers crossing next to Barry at the public phone, gives a sensation that joy and order have just come into Barry’s life. Order and control are augmented with the zooming in and close-up of Barry being assertive on the telephone with his meddlesome sister. That assertiveness transports us to the scene where Barry and Lena reunite at the hotel. Barry’s point of view we see Lena approaching framed in a brightly lit archway and bright in a bright white dress. From Lena’s point of view we see Barry framed in an archway that show Barry surrounded by things of bliss, such as fine art, exotic plants, pillars of alabaster framing Barry as upright and stately. The climax of this is the scene where Barry and Lena are wrapped in the shadows as the two meet in the middle of the walkway and the world passes by without notice of the love found.