Submarine - 2010

SUBMARINE – 2010

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: Certificate 15

Submarine is a Welsh Teen Coming-of-Age Movie set in Swansea in 1986. Most teen boys would like to think of themselves as being popular or they long to be popular with their male peers present in their immediate environments. At some stage, although not everyone would admit to this, they would also want to be noticed by their female peers as it would be a status symbol to have a girlfriend or to have several female admirers. The protagonist in this film is a 15-year-old school boy named Oliver Tate (played by Craig Roberts) who tends to fantasise about the world around him which helps him to deal with his mundane existence. The title of this movie represents Tate's position in society as him being unseen, just under the surface. We hear his narration over his scenes which assists the audience to realise that his ideas on life and reality are quite different from each other. Tate is totally love-struck with Jordana Bevan a rebellious classmate (played by Yasmin Paige) who says her mind and seems to have a dominant, highly confident manner. Both Tate and Bevan are loners who migrate briefly towards each other. It displays the usual awkwardness of teens trying to express themselves and dealing with the issues associated with growing-up.

In this head and body close up shot of Jordana we see her slightly off centre to the left of the screen. It is a low angled shot to make her appear more dominant plus she is in focus in the foreground which adds to this feeling of dominance. This character is the most important element in this image. The very dark underside of the pier in the background is blurred and insignificant to the scene but gives us the knowledge of her location. We can see the support structure of the pier on the right side of the image behind Jordana and only a small percentage of daylight is displayed to the lower right of the frame.

Jordana is angled a little towards the right and she is directing her gaze in that direction towards Tate who is out of shot. It is evident that her head is tilted slightly forward as her brown eyes are lowered giving the sense of power over Tate plus her dark bob is just swamping both sides of her face. We can see that she is wearing her black blazer, black cardigan, white shirt and tie (black with thin double white lines) of her school uniform which is worn neatly. Jordana is also wearing her symbolic red duffle coat which in this image is opened to represent her as being dangerous with a touch of a romantic element but she is giving signals to Tate that she is approachable.

This image displays an eye-level to the seated children shot which assists in applying height to their male teacher who is portrayed as having more importance and superiority across the classroom setting. It is also a medium shot taken from the front of the English classroom (a picture of William Shakespeare is displayed to the upper left on the rear wall) which gives the audience the information of the setting being within a school environment: the students are in rows sitting at tables with open books; a slightly blurred attentive female is in the lower right of the screen in the foreground looking with a right facing gaze towards the board; just to her right is a rebellious male student who is not wearing his blazer or jumper and has his top shirt buttons and tie undone; an in-focus Tate is positioned in the lower part of the centre of the image which draws the audiences eye towards him as being the main element in the image – he is sitting on the edge of the class (which also portrays that he is on the edge of society) and he is not paying attention as his head is turned outwards away from the classroom situation, towards the window on the left (we can gather this information as it is lighter on the left of the image) – he appears to be away with his own thoughts and not listening to what the teacher is saying; the door and notice board on the rear wall are blue to represent water which has connections to the title of the film – a submarine is associated with water.