Highrise

Highrise – Gabrielle Russell – 2002 – 4’00”

At only four minutes long Highrise very successfully sends out its themes and messages with a powerful punch & personally I loved it. A single mother living on a high floor in a block of flats has only crucial seconds to decide what actions to make on an event that could change her world completely, forever.

Highrise begins with a young toddler playing by itself on a sofa while the mother pays no attention more interested in watching what is on television. The pan of the room from the camera shows the flat to be not well furnished or decorated & not very clean either, instantly showing the audience that this woman could well be a struggling, single, unemployed mother living in lower, working class poverty conditions.

Still from "Highrise"

There is never any speech from the mother, her facial expressions are constantly blank & dull throughout with her body language very lazy & sluggish. This reflects the mother’s tired & exhausted state to the audience. Also, each time she looks over to her child her expressions never change or at times look somewhat slightly more irritated. From the actresses performance I believe it successfully shows to the audience that the mother feels very little affection or love towards her child & that she is suffering from post-natal depression. Every time the camera focuses on the mother, with the use of a steady cam or a jib the camera begins to sway left to right in a disorientating manner. This technique I believe very successfully backs up the fact that the mother is suffering from post-natal depression, with the swaying showing audiences her unstable, disorientated & confused state of mind.

Still from "Highrise"

The camera shots throughout the film are very close up of the characters and objects within the flat giving a sense of the mother’s claustrophobia and a feeling of being trapped within the flat with no means of escape. As the camera focuses on the television show, it is also showing the mothers focus which is a game show called “Dreams Can Come True”. This I believe shows to the audience the mothers feel for a need of an escape or a better life. However the use of sound here I believe is very clever because her child’s moans and cries feel to become slightly higher over the television show bringing the mother back to her reality, which in her mind doesn’t seem like a very great one. I believe this is also trying to show to the audience an understanding of why the mother is feeling how she feels as it gives a sense of her never being able to have time to herself and create any escapism at all.  

When the baby throws a doll which lands on the windowsill right next to a window that is wide open, the baby rises up to go grab the doll making the mother to jump up trying to stop the baby go near the window but she trips instead and falls to the floor. There is a focus on a bottle with milk dripping from the tip. I believe that the dripping of milk is supposed to represent those crucial seconds to act that everyone faces in life, how the choices you make in very little time can change your whole life forever, the dripping of milk representing the passing of crucial seconds the mother is being given for a chance to act. Instead however the mother looks back into the corridor and decides to crawl away closing the door behind her.

Still from "Highrise"

The shot in the corridor again I believe explains a lot to the audience about the mothers state of mind but also her situation. The long narrow shot of the corridor with dark lighting represent her feelings of being trapped & her state of mind being imprisoned in a long & very dark abyss. I believe this shot also symbolises the pressures of parenthood & the isolation & loneliness this single mother has been feeling. When the mother hears faint screams she instantly rushes into the front room, where like the audience she believe her baby has fallen out the window. However we discover the screams have come from the television of a contestant winning the game show and then we see the baby back to its original position at the start of the film playing with a new toy. The shot of the broken doll on the floor outside I believe is supposed to be a dark metaphor of what could have actually happened. This makes me also believe that another theme of this film (along with depression, time, isolation & loneliness or a sense of being trapped) could be fate. This is because the dripping of the milk representing the passing time which could be fate allowing her to take action. Also, the symbol of the doll on the floor showing what could of happened, which could possibly represent fate giving the mother another chance with her child.

Still from "Highrise"