Faith is a documentary that seeks to portray religion as a universal experience. As every individual is in the constant search of meaning, a reason for why things happen. For a long time religion has been a tool to relief this search, a search that is very human. The documentary represents two different religions and its communites, despite their differences, as equal in the quest they undergo.
While trying to show the universal factor of it, it also tries to represent specific groups. Seekin to portray individual factors of this communities like their traditions and particular believes. While the believes is portrayed by stories from the devine texts and particular leasons or callings, other particular factors of the culture are enhaced by the actual filmming of both a Catholic mass and a Jewish service. With this their differences are shown, but by the cross cutting of interviews their similarities are shown. Two different religions that have a big focus on community, as well a strong moral code.
Despite being followers of a religion, the documentary portrays their struggling relationship with God. It uses the story of Abraham and Isaac to illustrate a relationship that still despite the passing of time represents a important point for how religion is experienced for many. The documentary tries to make sure to portray religion and their believers as a mutualistic but in constant struggling relationship. This giving a more human aspect to it, as you can hear voices that indeed may not see what they believe in, and may recognize its hard, but anyways choose to do it. The documentary also uses a third voice that helps give a more objective view on both religions. But through the view of the proffesor the message is reinforced, as a external voice dives deep into the reasons behind this groups experience their beliefs.
This piece uses a range of visual and auditory techniques to connect with the audience while exploring a wide range of topics. The piece beggins with a narrator, questioning faith. All of this on a black screen giving more weight to her words, quickly hooking the audience. In contrast to the black screen an animation of an ellephant works as the B-roll to a story that works as an introduction without giving away how the structure would be, making the audience wonder for more.
Another important element to highlight is the music. Which played sinse the beginning evokes a mistery vibe, questioning and intrigue. And that evolves into a more celestial and devine melody with the tittle card and the B-roll.
The B-roll works nicely side by side with the interviews. Mantaining the tone and not stealing the complete attention out of the interviews, since they are the ones carrying the narrative. The narrator is another element that works side by side with the interviews. Working as a breathing space, when the information may feel as too much, making the transition to another topic easier. The documentary goes back to the animation at the end, giving the audience a feeling of full circle, which not only helps the audience draw their conclusions but also helps with the pacing.
For all this content portrayed, research was fundamental, giving their creators a path and tools to represent ideas through visual and auditory elements. As a start their topic is of a sensible nature, as religion plays a fundamental role for the subjects life. After reasearch on questions that would remain under a respectful margin but would still give us deep answers, the decision of making indirect interviews came. This would give the sensation of an intimate conversation with the audience that would help the better diggestion of the content.
The research upon Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was as well essential for the narrative of the documentary. The documentary was born from the idea that every religion is connected through faith regardless of how different they are. Kierkegaard proposed the concept of a leap of faith, where an individual abandons the rational thinking in order to follow a religion. This meaning following somenthing they don't have proves of. This research gave results on giving a north to the structuring but generated another problem for the documentary, as a very complex topic was portrayed in a 10 minute doc, making it hard to diggest. A narrator, in the form of V.O came as an answer. This gave the creators the opportunity to not deppend on the an external factor like the interviews and give the doc direction and breathing spaces when needed.
Another convention that was used was the crosscutting of interviews. Sinse a deep research about two different religions was done, acknowledging how many differences they had, the crosscutting of this interviews was going to be neccesary to directly juxtapose them and be able to show the similarities between them.
No comments:
Post a Comment