Lou-Lou Lives Here, Hazel Grian, 2005 by ADAM RUTHERFORD

http://raindance.tv/watch/film/lou-lou-lives-here

Lou-Lou Lives Here is a thriller/paranormal film of sorts with a very unusual story line. The film is completly in black and white giving it a very arty feel and making the story feel a lot darker despite the high contrast of the film itself. It uses lot's of Point of View shots making certain scenes seem very frantic and a technique often used in thrillers and horror films. The film has been filmed in a way that gives a very shakey hand held feel using extreme closeups on facial features, making the audience feel claustophaubic. The Iconograhy also helps this film fit into it's genre, using features such as dead animals, a stalker, shadows and the settings such as the woods and the barn.

The fact that the film is shot in black and white is an interesting approach by Grian, and gives Lou-Lou a more unique feel. I think that she has either done this to make the film appear more sinister (bringing out the high contrast in the little girls skin, making her look angelic) or even a reference to her being a dog (as dogs are colour blind and see in black and white). The way the shot is filmed with a hand held camera to give the film a dizzy claustrophobic feel is also an intresting convention used by Grian and gives the film a new dimension, making the camera feel like a character in itself. There is less tension then some would expext in a thriller, but i believe this is to make the ending more shocking and surprising. Everyone is expecting the white van man to grab the girl and make off with her, however suddenly a dog appears and mauls him.

The film uses the short film format in an unusual way giving away the conclusion subtly with scenes such as the girl finding the rabbit and licking her knee at the beggining, but also does so in a way that it takes a few viewings to actually understand what ahs happened. The Beggining of the film shows the girl waking up and walking, with the middle introducing the white van man and the end showing him meeting the dog and the resulting mauling he recieves. All be it the film is only four minuites long, not really leaving much space for added explanation to the conclusion or any other events in the film, so in this aspect Grian has managed to come up with a rough narrative very well. However, because of this there was no room for much character construction or devlopment (apart from the girl turning into a dog). At the end we see the sign hanging on the gate "Lou Lou lives here", as a way of showing the audience what the film is about and what happened to the girl at the end.

The sound in the film is unusual, in some aspects seemingly badly edited. The part where the white van man walks out of the forrest and makes a grunt is very strange, as the sound is quite loud and obviously done in post production. It's also emphasised as is the dog's panting while it's attacking the man. Throughout this scene it's continuosly panting whilst also somehow barking. The sounds have been overlapped during edited making them sound very unrealsitic. Apart from this the sound is genreally done in a typical low key thriller way; the sounds of the setting such as birds and bushes rustling. The sound of the van pulling up is very loud to emphasise the new danger that has presented itself to Lou-Lou. The non-diegetic sound also follows the horror/thriller conventions with low key sinister piano music running throughout changing only when the van appears becoming darker, again emphasising the new danger. The sound is effective in the film, taking away the need for any diologue, making the film more chilling and less obvious to what is going on

The issues and themes in this film are a lot less obvious then in most short films, with none being paticularly obvious. The way I understood it, the film is about a girl who is originally a dog, but can some how shape-shift. I got this from subtle hints such as the girl licking her knee, looking at a dead rabbit as if she wanted to eat it, and the white van man coming towards her with a toy of some sort. The reasons the man is trying to get the girl seems to be that he is a peadophile who has found a young girl on her own. This could be another reason he has brought the toy with him. However he could also be a dog catcher who knows that the girl isn't human. This theory is defeated in a way by the fact he doesn't prepare himself to be attacked. One issue the film could be trying to raise is that not everything is as it seems (evil peadophile and innocent girl suddenly role reversing). Apart from that there is not much i can take from this film

BY Adam Rutherford