Two & TwoTragic and realistic short film, with an aim to present current world

situation, where people know wrong and teach children the same way.

Short film by Babak Anvari

Drama Short film – 6.51.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHAuGA7gqFU

Director Biography Babak Anvari is an award winning film maker based in London. Despite being an excellent director, he is also very successful producer

and writer. He also broadened up his horizons by acting (‘Une impression’), editing (‘Duet’) and cinematographing (‘I’m a Purifier’) some movies.

He was nominated in 2012 for BAFTA Film Reward, as the director of the Best Short Film ‘Two & Two’, 2011.

In 2011, Anvari was rewarded for the best short film on Oldenburg Film Festival, also for the movie ‘Two & Two’.

Despite being a director of short films, Babak Anvari also worked for MTV (in UK and Ireland) as one of the directors of MTV live sessions. This airs on various MTV network channels around the world so as online.

He has directed live performances of popular artists. Among all of them, main ones are Lady Gaga, Florence & the Machine, Tinie Tempah, Pixie Lott and many others…

Reception & Audience

Film was published on youtube on January 12, 2013. Since then, it has almost reached 3,000,000 views (2,868,275). Likes (25,025) on youtube are enormously ahead of dislikes (1,825) which proves the popularity of the movie.

Also, the film has was nominated on BAFTA and another short film festival (Oldenburg Film Festival), where it had a very positive reaction from the jury and audience-since it won the first place.

Reviews on the film where mainly positive, stating that the movie is very ‘touchy’ because it presents the inability of children to oppose teachers who are obviously wrong. The ‘Nazi’ regime doesn’t let them think, it only brainwashes them-as stated.

‘This short film, so simple in its construct and content, pulls a very powerful punch. I personally found it chilling, and it deeply affected me for some time after.’- anonymous review.

Mise-en-scene and the movie

Setting The action takes place in the classroom of one school. The setting doesn’t

indicate the genre in any why, because the classroom full of kids can be a comedy so as a horror. Because of this, the variety of options we have, we can non adopt our mood towards a setting because it is to general. However, props contribute really good to the movie, because we can see that the school is not an elite school with rich people, but a poor, ordinary school. This is mainly because of its chairs, table, board, floor etc… The setting, if we couldn’t see the characters in it, would not tell us much about the culture of the characters

Costume Costume does not suggest any king of genre, same as setting. However it does

tell us that it is a school, strict, uniform atmosphere. From the outlook and quality of the uniforms we can conclude that people in the film are not wealthy. Costume doesn’t suggest any kind of historical period neither it creates a specific mood.

Lighting

Lighting can not specifically pick the genre, but it does indicates some darker genre, not a comedy for example. There is no sunny, bright atmosphere that would suggest some happy storyline. In fact, we can conclude that it is some kind of drama, thriller…The colour of the lighting does not change during the film. The colour tone tells much more than the light itself.

Figure, expression and movement

This is probably the most important part in the whole mise-en-scene. Face gesture, body position and movement of the teacher tells us how he feels, and what he thinks of himself. The position of him in the frame (center, low angled) increases his importance in terms of being more powerful. Also a little boy has a face that represents persistence, smartness, attitude, character… The acting as a whole, is the most important thing in the movie, and it gives it a tone and creates a mood.

Narrative & Textual Analysis

Film’s opening is very peaceful but in the same time very creepy. It is very slow, and font by which the name of the film is written, is like a ‘hand-written’ font. There is no classical fade in/out transition, but instead some invisible hand is writing it on the green-board. This green-board we are able to see when the camera zooms out.

Once the camera is completely zoomed out, we can see the whole class with many students speaking quietly among themselves. An interesting think we must spot, is that there are no girls in the classroom- indicating a one gander school. The camera stops, and a wide, long-shot takes place.

Professor enters the room, and all kids like in a military stand up as a symbol of greet. The next shot is a close-up on professor’s face, so we can see his face with a facial expression in details. This shows the importance of the professor, because he is the only one being zoomed-in.

Over the shoulder shot is placed, so we can see the professor looking at his class, and at the same time looking at his watch and checking the time.

While asking a little boy what is the result of 2+2, the professor is filmed from the low angle shot, and the boy from the high angle. This is because low angle shot gives an impression of the object/subject having more power against the other object/subject. Therefore, film director wanted to make this feeling of a little boy having no or very little influence, while the teacher was the dominant one.

During the whole movie, we can not hear non-diegetic music. All we hear is the ambient sound and the dialogue between actors. Voice over, direct address or a sound bridge is not used in this film.

The only special effect that is used (added in post production) is the bullet going in the boy’s direction. It is in the form of CGI special effect. Editing is continuity editing, with an aim to show flow less action-trying to hide cuts.

An important shot, that also shows the power between the boy and the professor is when he is giving him the last chance to write on the board that two and two is five. Two shot and over the shoulder shot is used with 90 degrees rule, so that we, as the audience can see facial gesture of both actors.

Camera is a still camera consisting of few pans, zoom and reverse zoom. A triggering part is the end of the movie. After the teacher tried to convince

his students that 2+2=5, by acting strict, too dominant (killing the boy who opposed him), they pretended to believe him. They were scared to oppose him further more, but they didn’t take him seriously. Last scene of the movie shoots only the hands of another boy writing in his notebook the answer for 2+2. We can not hear ambient sound, even not the flow of the air. The audience can not here anything, and we can only spot a little boy writing the answer 4, and then immediately scrubbing it and writing 5.

The movie sends a very powerful message, and leaves a long lasting scar on viewers. It makes us think after the movie of the world as it is today. It is very deep, has inner soul and is shot in correct way (in terms of technique). Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it won two awards.

Leading Characters

Professor

•Strict•Dominant•Harsh•Emotionless•Non-ethical•Selfish•Cold•Empty•Soulless•Cold-hearted•Uniform

Little Boy

•Smart•Innocent•Powerless•Stubborn•Benign•Persistent•Warm-hearted•Strong

Production Trivia

There are two main trivia in this movie.

First one is that the professor watch shows a time of 8 am when he checks it at the beginning of the video.

Another on is that the professor calls three ‘top students’ in the class to reassure to the class that he is speaking in wisdom and truth