Analysis of the film The Others

Film: The Others

Year: 2001

Director: Alexandro Amenabar.

The film is about a woman who lives in a darkened old house with her two photosensitive children. She becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.

Nicole Kidman stars in the film as a wealthy mother to two children. She lives in a big house and therefore needs cleaners to clean it up for her. The film starts with her new employees (cleaners) going to work. She is younger than all her cleaners except a girl who doesn’t talks throughout the first few minutes of the film. The older lady in her early 60s is viewed as a mother figure to the girl who is probably in a late teens. The older man is the house gardener. He is in his late 60s. According to the film, Nicole Kidman is a English woman in the 1940s.

The workers were wearing dull dark costumes while Nicole Kidman was wearing reddish feminine dress. The film is set in a big mansion which all the mysteries happen in it. The prop used was 50 keys of the house. These keys were used in each door in the house and the doors had to be kept closed at all time. Throughout the first ten minutes of the film, the lighting used was under-exposed.

At the start of the film, a long shot was used to show the house Nicole Kidman and her family lives. This shows the isolation of the family. The movement used at the start of the film is a zoom in. This is used to show the emotions of the character. For example, when Nicole Kidman got up from sleep screaming. A zoom in was used to show her distress. Nicole Kidman is always seen at the centre of the frame. This shows her authority.

External non-diegetic sound is used to show Nicole Kidman’s class. She talks in a higher class English accent. The audience hear a voice over of a woman talking of how the universe began. 

                            A scene from the film where Nicole Kidman finds her daughter in a wedding dress.

                                        Movie trailer of The Others.