Gender representation – A Tale of Two Sisters opening

sequence analysis.

Hannah Cochrane

Sound• Door opening breaks the silence• Footsteps• Water splashing• Door opening again• More footsteps drawing nearer• Chairs creaking• Speech – one sided. Man talks down to the girl. His voice is soft, indicating he

is superior and the young female is vulnerable. Lots of questions. Enigma code ‘Can you tell me what happened that day?’ Emphasises the girl’s vulnerability to the mention of the subject of ‘that day’. Makes female’s seem weak.

• Long gaps between speech – woman is reluctant to speak.• Towards the end a happy music track plays, as if to contrast the serious scene.• Unusually, there is very little sound in the opening sequence which represents

the unknowing, uneasiness and eeriness of the scene.

Camera shots

• Establishing shot of the room.• Over the shoulder shots – contrast of gender/personality etc.• Shows the back of the young female’s head a lot and her hair covers

her face. Nothing is given away through facial expression, the audience is unable to form a connection with the character at this point and she is very mysterious. However, the male’s face is clearly visible and is the first character to appear. This makes him appear more important.

Mise en scene

• As the male is on the left hand side of the screen in the establishing shot of the room, across from the young female, the audience would notice him first as it is typical that the audience would ‘read’ a screen from left to right. Therefore the young female would be the last thing noticeable and seem less important.

• As the female is slouched over in her chair, it appears that the man is higher up (hierarchy), making him more authoritative and more important.

• The room is very empty and the sound echoes, adding to the mystery of the narrative, characters and setting.

• The two females clothes are very similar and both are all in white, making them similar characters and possibly branding them as ‘just women’. The man is wearing dark trousers which makes him different, setting apart male and female.

• As it is set in a mental hospital or something similar, the two females’ clothes being similar could suggest that the women should both be actually admitted to the hospital, not just the young woman with her hair covering her face.

• The second woman seems to be doing the most difficult job, and it appears to be a submissive job compared to that of the male character.

• The first female and the man are binary opposites in relation to their age, gender, situation and talkativeness.

Editing

• The second female character who brings the young woman into the room is hardly shown and is cut out of the scene a lot, she obviously works in the same establishment as the male character but he is more superior as he is in charge and asking the questions. The other female is just helping the young woman into the room and could be something like a support worker. The male character is the most shown character in the scene and also has more screen time, especially compared to this woman who is only on screen for a few seconds.

• There are no close ups of this woman which make her seem like she doesn’t have a purpose and or reason in the scene, she is just another woman.