'About A Girl'

It was directed by Brian Percival in 2001 and won awards such as the BAFTA for best short film, best short at the Edinburgh Film festival, the TCM Classic Shorts Award prize at the London Film Festival, and the Jury Prize at the Raindance Film Festival. It was written by Julie Rutterford and produced by Janey de Nordwall. The plot consists of the main character, a young girl, talking about her personal life and aspirations in style of a documentary. The audience receives a huge shock at the end’s twist while themes and issues such as teenage pregnancy and responsibility rise to prominence.

The titles are first to appear on the screen in a quite modern and technological fashion as each letter looks as if it’s being typed, especially as there’s a beeping noise alongside it, similar to a mobile phone’s keypad sound. The futuristic typography could convey to the audience the film is about youth, because that’s what it connotes. The first shot is of a silhouetted girl singing and dancing along to Britney Spears’ song ‘Stronger’. As the girl is standing on her own, we gain a sense of both her independence and isolation which are quite contradicting, so, therefore, this could be a binary opposition. Also, the lyrics become increasingly significant as the film goes on because contextually the singer is talking about being out of a relationship, not belonging to her boyfriend anymore and standing on her own two feet. However, after the ending of the film revealed, where the girl throws the baby into the water, the lyrics could have their own meaning specifically for the girl “I’ve had enough, I’m not your property from today, baby’.

It then cuts to a close up of the girl talking directly to the camera with her eye line level matching the audience’s. This could convey her confidence, ego and how comfortable she is with herself because she is talking very swiftly and freely expressing her views with the opening line “If Jesus were alive today right, he’s probably be a singer”. She’s talking in a strong mancunian accent and through the mise-en-scene we can see she’s from a working class family as we see Manchester’s dilapidated, industrial site. Through this, we can see glimpses of the poverty and deprivation of her area and possibly her family.

There are then many jump cuts which communicate her randomness as she’s talking about loads of different things at once. Upon further analysis, this could be showing her irrationality, disorientation and disjointedness about the situation with the baby and how she feels about it because at the age of 13 it’s extremely hard emotionally, especially for girls, which was also evident through watching ‘Love Me or Leave Me Alone’. There is no solid evidence for the baby belonging to the girl however, I believe it makes more sense if it does because of the way she continues to mention how she has become good at “hiding things”.

Her monologue could also be interpreted as confessional because of her directness. To elaborate upon this, she is blissfully letting us, as an audience, into her personal life without hesitation which could either highlight her naivety or prove the fact she’s feeling guilty about the baby. It could also evoke empathy or sympathy from the audience because her monologue is constantly being interrupted by short scenes of her home life with the separation of her mother and father. Furthermore, we are presented with the fact her father is neglectful because the girl asks to live with him and he implies he is too busy for that.

Although she appears quite grown up and independent at times due to the different shots, we also see her childlike fantasies surface when she’s on the bus. The diegetic sound of her and her friends singing ‘Oops I did it again’ by Britney Spears accentuates their aspirations and the idea all young teenagers are dreamers as they’re talking about being famous singers.

The shot where she’s situated above the water is foreshadowing while also showing the audience how she’s reflecting upon something (at this point, we are unaware of what it is exactly). The way she’s gazing down at the water communicates this because she’s at the top of the frame, could be metaphorical because literally, she’s looking at her reflection physically but it could also represent her emotional and mental reflection.