'The most beatiful man in the world'

The most beautiful man in the world information
The short film 'The most beautiful man in the world'

The short film ‘The most beautiful man in the world’ was written and directed by Alicia Duffy, who has recently directed ‘All Good Children’ in 2009. ‘The most beautiful man in the world’ was produced by Hugh Welchman and Alan Dewhurst in 2002 alongside a small cast of 4 people. Breakthru productions, the Film Council and Stink productions were involved in making and distributing of this short film. In the year 2003 this short won 3 awards and got nominated for another 2 awards but didn’t win.
This short film ‘The most beautiful man in the world’ allows audience memembers to interpret different ideological views surrounding the age of the child and what is expected of her lifestyle. The main issue of this short film is neglect; the young girl is shown without the support or interactions from her mother or other family members. Ideological views surrounding neglect can be explored in deeper outlets then can be first seen. A mother is typically meant to have a caring figure role for any children and care for their up-bringing amongst allowing the children to develop in a supportive healthy environment. However, in this short film, the young girl is alone with interactions from the television and her dog. In some views the dog can be seen as her guidance, the dog is with her in most shots either close or at a bit of a distance still watching her; When the girl decides to explore the wildness she is in her own world; although the audience can still hear the dogs presence, the girl feels safe in the company of the dog. Other views involve that the lack of interaction from the girls mother may suggest that she is being treated similarly to the dog; feed and sheltered. But missing the essential components to develop such as the love and care from family members in this case her mother.
The girl’s father is not present within the film; however audience members may indicate that the man that the girl meets the ‘wild’ is her father. Although it is not mentioned, other views on the guy may indicate that he is a paedophile who may take advantage of the young girl’s innocence. The Micro element camera captures the volubility of the girl and also expressing the possible intensions of the man. To start as the girl has gone into the ‘wildness’ the field, the camera shots focus on her playing in the over grown plants, creating a suspends that something is going to come out or jump up and attack her or something. Later in the shot audience members can hear the sound of the dog moaning at this point some audience members may feel that the dog is being attacked and then it will be the girls turn, however, the audience then sees a man stroking the dog, in which leads the girl to walk towards him as she is following the guidance from her dog. The look that she gives the man explores her innocence, but on the other hand has expression may seem devious. It this also expressed into the next shot, which is an extreme close up of the girl’s shoulder, here there is a bug on the girl’s person. Some audience members could see this as the man being kind taking the bug off her and others could see this as a step forward into taking her top off. After this shot the man shows the girl the bug this is still a extreme close up, he opens his hands indicating his kindness and generosity, at this point the audience still doesn’t know what this mans full intensions are.
The idea that this short film is expressing a matriarchal ideological view of the world addresses the audience after the shots with the man and the young girl. After giving her the bug he looks up and in disgrace he sees what the audience can only imagine is the girls mum, and looks away from the girl. Being matriarchal means headed by a woman or the woman have more power than man, in this short film audience members can express that the mum has set boundaries in the involvement of the ‘father’ of the girl. The look away from the girl shows that he has over stepped the mark or the rules the mum set about. However, protecting the girl from seeing her father isolates the issue of neglect; as children need the support of both parents because they see them as role models who are teaching them the norms and values of society.
As part of her boundaries, the mother has trapped the young girl in the confiding of their home, in which she is only receiving interactions from the television and her dog whilst being neglected by her mother on a 24/7 bases. Audience can see that there is a boundary from when the young girl is playing out of the front of the house, where later there is a medium shot of the girl in the her front garden looking to explore the overlooking field. The girl starts walking toward the field and comes to a gate, the shot is steady as the girl drags her hand along the fence, she goes out of the shot for a few seconds but then reappears on the other side of the gate. The gate or fence could be portraying the boundaries which are easily broken without the guidance of an adult or parent.
This short film ‘The most beautiful man in the world’ explores many ideological views around the theme neglect, in just a short period of time. This 5-6 minute film explodes innocence of a young girl living in matriarchal society controlled by her mother, with little influences of the outside world expect from the television, which may create a false hopes of the girl. When she does break through the boundaries and explores the outside world she becomes vulnerable and her innocence has expanded. This short film has captured the different ideological views and the issues around them through the micro elements, camera, sound, editing and mise en scene.