SEQUENCE ANALYSIS

WNTTAK from Sarah Reysen on Vimeo.

For this post, I decided to go with a scene from the 2011 film We Need To Talk About Kevin. The first part of the sequence is full of successive jump cuts and multiple graphic matches. It begins with Kevin moving into the frame from the outside and is taken from an extremely low-angle perspective, signifying his powerful position as he seethes with rage. We then cut to a neutral profile view of Eva who is smiling and laughing, a strong contrast being drawn between her and her son. However, Eva and Kevin become more aligned in the next two shots, wherein she submerges her face into the water, while he pokes water with his finger. Both of these shots of Eva and Kevin are taken from a low-angle as well. There's yet another graphic match between Kevin poking at the water and him crushing the cereal under his fingers, though the latter is a much longer take in comparison.

The rest of this scene plays out with much less abrupt cuts, starting with a medium shot of Kevin. We then transition to a medium close-up of his face along with Eva's disembodied hand. This is followed by a jump directly into an extreme close-up of Kevin's mouth as the audience gets clued into the heinous plans he hopes to enact before the weekend. The camera is then placed much further away, facing him at about a 45° angle from the back. We're then treated to a long shot of Kevin as he glares at where the rest of his family has seemingly congregated without him before the door closes, ending the scene.