Our film is a psychological thriller. Typical conventions of thrillers are plot twists. This convention is apparent in our film, the majority of our film leads the audience to believe that Damian is in fact on a simple journey in search of his wife, however near the end of the film, it is discovered that in fact he killed her and has been suffering with chronic mental illness. Two examples of films that employ these twists are The Sixth Sense and Shutter Island.
Shutter Island is very similar to our film in that the twist revolves around mental illness and the main character living in a fantasy world, and that the audience doesn't discover the reality of whats happening until the end of the film. The Sixth Sense has a twist like our film, however it reveals that The main character Dr. Crowe has been dead for the entirety of the film. Even though the topic of the twists are different between our film and the Sixth Sense, they are both effective in shocking the audience.
Dr Crowe realizes he's dead
Our film also has elements of drama in it, due the focus on Damian's love for his wife and the lack of focus on action. Thriller films nearly always center around action or violence, whereas in our film the only violence is when we discover that Damian killed his wife in a brief vision, and then Damian commits suicide. A common convention of drama films is that they contain realistic characters that suffer hardships and pain that everyone can relate to. These elements are included in our film, Damian seems to be a normal man in search of his wife that is assumed to be a 'the one that got away' kind of character. In our film we see Damian struggle with his wife's absence, emotional pain is a common theme of drama and our film contains lots of it. Dramas also contain lots of tension, and an ending of resolution. This is where our film differs from the common convention of happy endings in drama films and becomes a thriller, if our film was a drama, the film would end with Damian finding and winning back his estranged wife. In our film, this is not the case, our film ends with the audience discovering that Damian in fact kills his wife, which leads to him committing suicide.
Another convention of thriller films is that the lead actors/characters tend to be male. In both of the examples I have chosen to look at the main characters are male, and the male character in our film will also be male, however we did cast our doctor as a female character, which although in todays society is becoming more common, it is still rather unconventional.
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