The Road Home

Love is unshakable, and it can also make you do anything,and this film " The Road Home" portrays this. The story opens in the present, shot in gritty black and white, as businessman Luo returns to his rural hometown to attend the funeral of his father. When he suggests that the coffin should be brought home from the hospital on a tractor, his aging mother rebuffs him, insisting that they conform to custom and have it carried home by local men. Later, as Luo recalls his parent's courtship, the film switches to color and travels back in time about 40 years.

The transition from the gritty black and white to color was a perfect representation for emotions especially for love. There were also several shot or scenes in this film that i thought was brilliant and well executed. Like the scene where Zhao Di starts sewing the banner for the school and lighting behind her came through in the shot, and extenuated the character's skin tone and the color of the banner (red). Another would be when Zhao ran into the house after seeing the love of her life, she came home to change her coat. The scene was gray wash and the colors that stood out in that scene was the red yarn in the mother's hand, and the bright green yarn in Zhao's hair.

But my favorite scene and probably the longest shot in this film would be when Zhao places her plate of food on the table, then something unusual starts to happen, the foreground stands still and Zhao's plate stands out from the rest, as this was happening the background was still moving, the background emphasize the pass of time, and i don't think i have seen any shot or scene like that before. Scenes or shots in this film had symmetry, linear thought, composition, and rule of thirds, there were several shots in film that actually proves this. There was this one shot were there was a tree trunk at the center of the shot, the other was in black & white when Zhao was at the school yard crying, and there was like a repetition/linear thought of logs or sticks in rows behind her.

I thought making this film two colored was great, well executed, and cleverly thought out, because it made the viewers understand the two side or views of emotions. The grim and gritty black & white made the viewers understood it stood for sadness, and of course color for happy emotion that mostly emphasized on love. My favorite had to be color, because the color in this film popped out, it was gorgeous, and brilliantly used.The scene that i loved the black & white picture would be when the men carried the casket along the road, it represented sadness, loneliness, and thing you would normally feel at a funeral, i liked this scene especially when it was shot from a high angle.

I absolutely loved the end of the movie when Zhao runs on the road, and the camera direction just goes into an high angle shot. Then i understood what the road and the title of the film meant, the road represent the thing that stood in between or separated the love of Zhoa's life, but it also the road that makes Zhoa happy when she sees the love of her life coming down that road. I would totally give "The Road Home" a 10.

Path of Glory

I think Paths Of Glory is among the most powerful antiwar films i have ever seen, it's a gut-wrenching, unforgettable drama. Every scene is awash in grays, and covered in doom. I feel like the movie was great as a black and white film, every shot moved the story along, because every shot brought to the table a clue, inference, or glimpse, on what might happen in the next shot or scene . The cinematographer or director marvelously contrasts the ornate palace where the generals sip their cognac with the grim trenches where injured men stumble about, demoralized and shell shocked.

The costumes in this film represent the whole theme of the film, because the soldiers had the same uniforms and weapons. There is one place in this film where i loved the lighting, it would be the scene when the prisoners were in the dungeon, and all the brightness was on one side of the wall in the dungeon, but on the other side where the prisoners were, it was dark, so it was like they were isolated, and it showed an example of contrast between lights and darks, and i thought lightning was well executed in this scene.

Music was usually played during battle(fast paced/ doom), at the generals' ball(jolly/happy/fast). The main character Douglas gives a tough, gritty performance, with his tense sparring with the high command features, and sharp biting dialogue, basically the entire cast was outstanding, because they added the intensity,emotions, and drama to the film.

Path of Glory is basically about the things that goes on during a war, and how it affects the country, economy, and especially the solider. These soldiers go through a long emotional state, some get shell shocked, some are very saddened from being away from their family for a long time, or a death of a friend, watching so many men die for no reason was maddening. Paths Of Glory is a crowning achievement when it comes to depicting the devastation, both physical and psychological, that war wreaks on the individual, as well as the state.