The Coup de Grace

The Coup de Grace

The short film, The Coup de Grace is a realistic war movie that illustrates the casualties of war. This film does not glorifies war, instead it gives a very realistic view of its aftermath. One of the many artistic techniques use in this movie is the illusion of action which is achieved by the quick movement of the camera. For example, the Captain at the beginning of his search is stationary and facing forward for a long time. As he is facing forward, the background is in motion giving a sense of action. This means that the world around him is moving on and time does not stop for no one. Finally he moves aimlessly for a long time. This shows that to try to find someone in such a situation is not an easy task to do. He choose to do it alone even though he could have gather some soldiers to help him make the task faster if not easier. Perhaps he was afraid of the outcome and how he would handle it emotionally thus losing his bearing in front of his men. As he is searching, he is very gentle and careful went he turns the death bodies around to make a positive identification of his friend. He is giving the bodies the outmost respect even thought they are dead. The captain finally finds his wounded best friend. He reacted in an angry and confused way. The wounded sergeant had regressed to an earlier stage of development to deal with the immense pain of his wound. Seen his friend like this made the captain remember an earlier happy time went the sergeant was free of pain and injuries. The flashback is another artistic technique use in the film. The two friends are conversating and reminiscing their childhood. It is important to notice how yellow green the grass is in this scene compared to lather. The sergeant’s older bother, the major disturbs their happy conversation. The artistic technique use to do this is shown with an immediate sun spot.

The sergeant gets up and renders a salute, but the captain does not salutes showing disrespect toward the major. The major expresses his jealously and gives him his assignment adding that if the captain wished, he could give it to someone else of lesser rank.