'Cosmos' - Charlotte Hudson

'Cosmos' Directed by João Paulo Simões / Portugal / 2010

 A short film using the theme of poverty - 'part gritty observation, part poetic celebration of motherhood'

Representation

• Goes against the stereotypical 'homeless character' which in many films are males such as, 'pursuit of happiness'. More males are seen playing the homeless character whereas in this film it is a female. However is does go with the stereotype of women playing prostitutes as this female plays a prostitute. 
• The stereotype of the rich men picking up females on the side of the road for sex is also used in this film. Therefore the film shows negative representations about less wealthy people in the world and presents them as all being the same.
• The film also stereotypes rich men, with their expensive cars picking up women and giving them money, for example like the film 'taken' - Rich men selling women for money and making them prostitutes. 

Genre

• Social realism and experimental, as this film is addressing real issues that take place everyday, dealing with poverty and prostitution. 
• Rick Altman says about 'syntactic codes' (what we expect to happen) and in this film this happens as the woman lives in poverty and therefore doesn't have money, As a result of this it becomes obvious to the audience what she has to do for money. As this film is a social realism genre- what happens is quite predictable. 

Narrative

• As the film starts with a women washing in dirty water, seen as quite dirty and poor and is clearly in poverty this raises questions for the audience. Therefore Roland Barthes idea of enigma code fits in with this short film. As there is mystery in the text because the audience wonders why the female is there and what has happened to her. 
• There is also therefore 'restricted narration' because the audience isn't seeing everything because the film starts with the protagonist in poverty instead of us seeing 'why' she became to live in poverty. 
• You also only see the plot of the story as the audience only see the events that are being shown in the film, not the entire story behind this character and therefore the events are plotted together to create a narrative.
• I also think the film may be 'multi-strand' as there is a minimal conclusion. The film ends with the woman just looking at money and putting it in an envelope, you don't see what she is doing with the money, where she is at the end and where she is going. The film ends in a totally different setting to the setting at the beginning, so you don't know where the rest of the narrative is going. 
  
• In the scene before when she is being paid for sex you don't know where she is or who the person is, the narration is very restricted and raises questions. 

Media Language

• The film is produced in black and white, this is a way of expressing how the female character is feeling, nothing is happy or good, everything is just dark and depressing as she has nowhere to live and has to find difficult ways to earn money. Therefore the black and white reflects her mood and emotions.
• Change in time is just shown through fades to black and making the shots blurred and therefore is like a 'jump cut' continuously and not a continual story. This can be seen as quite effective as it could suggest that her life is 'random' and spur of the moment.. she doesn't have a set routine, also may suggest that the story of her life isn't seen as 'relevant' to the audience or even the character in the film.
•  There were some interesting shots in this film, some more interesting and creative than others. One that particularly stands out to me is when she is 'earning' her money, the shot is at a low angle, and you see the female character and what is going on but the man is just a black silhouette. This is creative as it suggests that the man is irrelevant to the female character, she is just 'earning money'. You see that the black and white effect just mirrors her facial expression and emotion. 
• Non-diegetic sound is used throughout, and children laughing or talking is also used suggesting memories of when she was a child.
• The prop of the Adui gives the impression of the man being wealthy

Audience

• There isn't a specific audience i would say this film is aimed at, i guess the film could be seen as a way of showing awareness to different audiences of what people's lives are like. The audience i guess would be for people who are interested in drama's and learning about the troubles in the world? but i wouldn't say there is a specific audience. 
• The demographic would be either male or female.

Ideas

I like the use of the film being a social realism film and addressing an everyday problem, and also by not stereotyping