Eight, Steven Daldrey, 1998 by ADAM RUTHERFORD

Eight is a short film focusing on a eight year old boy dealing with the death of his father who he never met. The film is a drama, and show obvious conventions of it's genre. The main character, Jonathan, narrates the film and there are a lot of scenes of him on his own narrating the film in a solique fashion. It has been filmed in a way where the non-diegetic narration becomes diegetic through sound bridging. In one scene where Jonathan will narrate while something else is going on in the film (ie when him and his mate are watching football) the next scene is him at his house narrating to the camera. The themes of loss and lonliness are studied in depth not only by what the protagonist says but what he doesn't say. The scenes of him on his own, and also when he's talking about what professions his dad had show this.

The film doesn't follow a typical narrative structure in the way that there isn't an obvious begining middle or end. Todorov's theory of narration proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, followed by a disruption causing a disequilibrium. This is then followed by a new equilibrium bringing the film to a conclusion. This film is more of a view into the protagonist's average day(s) and gives the audience a general idea of what his life is like; focusing on his relationship with his best friend and his mum, also giving his opinions on his father and fathers in general.

Some themes discussed in this film are mentioned above (loss and lonliness), but there are others such as Friendship, innocence and Family. There is a very clever shot where Jonathan is eating his dinner and in the background his mother is watching looking anxious and upset. The main focus of the shot is on the boy, but the way the camera is angled is the director's way of showing how other people around him are coping with his father's death.
Youth is shown in the film through Jonathan's energy and also his love for football. The first scene where he is shouting at the sky is a scene many parents are probably familiar with. The obsession he has with football and in paticular the world cup is also a typical feature of a boy his age. His dad died at a football match watching liverpool, and as this is one of the only things Jonathan knows about his father, it goes a long way to explain why he loves it so much. This is a sympathetic representation of the character by the director and helps the audience to understand what's going on with the character in his head, bringing the film back to being about not what he says but what he doesn't.

BY Adam Rutherford