I found many similarities with this film and the one I hope to create. This is a short documentary about a woman who trains poodles and performs with them for the circus in Russia. The film is a character portrait and is centred on the this woman, Irina Markova, who talks very intimately about her past, present and future and is very open about it. This is something I would like to achieve with my main contributor, Pam, who the documentary will be focused on. I would like to delve deep into her life and uncover quite personal secrets and things like her hopes and fears.
They are also similar in the way that these dogs are Irina's life and as she says she cannot be separated from her work. For Pam that refuge is her life and something that she too can not be separated from because she lives there so will probably be there until she dies.
I think they capture the emotion well, the woman is talking about a story of how she had a dog when she was younger but couldn't train it to go toilet so her mother sold it, to anyone this would be a very upsetting time but for Irina it has traumatised her and cries thinking about it now.
They use this information very early on in the film because it is vital information, because we now know it is due to this event that caused her to do the job she does now training dogs. The director could have reversed it and kept this bit of information until the end so it would more of a realisation moment for the audience where everything becomes clear but instead they decided to tell her story chronologically so it begins with why she started, what she does and how she feels about the present and her fears for the future and becoming too old to do it. Even though we only see this woman for 7 minutes because they cover such deep and intimate issues you feel by the end that you know her well. Some of these things she shares you might struggle to find out from your own family and could end up never knowing their real thoughts.
The topics that the film touches on are very relevant to everyone, and what it does is cause you to think about the things mentioned and in a way evaluate your life. Because even though these specific events are unique to her life most people will have gone through a particularly traumatic stage in some part of their childhood and most people have fears about the future and what will happen they get too old to work.
The difference is that most people probably wouldn't allow a traumatic event to affect them in such a way they do something drastic like devote their whole life to training dogs in a circus and most people don't worry about stopping their jobs because they are not that tied to it that they need it to live.
This is what makes this film intriguing because this is not an ordinary woman and that is also the reason why I was drawn to Pam to do this documentary because she is not an ordinary, average person. I always find people are drawn to watching things about people who are different because I think they find it hard to believe sometimes that there are people are there, who could sacrifice most things for instance like Pam and Irina.
Most people couldn't live without their luxuries and material things so are either curious, in awe or maybe just sympathetic or confused about people who can, and do choose to lead very different lives.
I also like the tone of this film, I think it complements the character well. The music sounds very Russian and also very haunting a it plays for the duration of the film, even when there are gaps of silence within the film. What I think this does is highlight the fact there is no normality, there's never a point when it just stops and she talks about something more light-hearted, it is very intense all the way through so the façade never ends. And that is what it's like for her, the trauma never really goes away, she carries a lot of pain and instead of subsiding it just morphs into new fears as she gets older.
There is actually no other diegetic (within film world) sounds in the film except for her interview, which again I think is to make you focus on just her and be absorbed by it, you feel almost like you've been sucked right into the world and there are no distractions or outside relief for the whole 7 minutes.
To help keep this style and pace the cutting is also quite slow, each image lingers for a while so you just listen to her words, again meaning there is nothing to jerky or abrupt to distract you from her world. Slow pacing is something I was aiming to use for A World Within Three Acres, for similar reasons to why they have used the technique. I want shots to stay for a while so people can take it in and not be distracted from what she says by too many images and too much action happening on screen. Like with this film, I do intend to use a lot of interesting cutaways, they have used lots of the dogs and her with the dogs and I would like to do this with Pam. I want to show Pam working on her own, Pam interacting with the animals and then just shots of the animals on their own and possibly some of the other volunteers too.
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