Lovefield- Narrative- Megan

Restricted narration is used throughout the short film to keep the audience guessing about the story and the plot.

There are several action and enigma codes used throughout the film (as proposed by Roland Barthes) these are props that cause an active engagement in the audience to make them question what is happening and try and understand the plot and the genre of the film by these props and what they are being used for/in what context are they presented to us.


One of the enigma codes that appears repeatedly throughout the film in the shot of the black bird which presents the thoughts of darkness and mystery surrounding the story. An action shot that is used is the knife stabbing into the ground which could predict violence has or is about to happen which leads the audience to guess that the plot is horror/thriller as this is the sort of action code that would be used in that kind of genre. The bloody material seen on the floor as the camera pans over as well as the eerie non diegetic music makes us begin to believe this was a rape or something along those lines as we can hear a woman crying.

This film can be related to Todorov and his 5 stages of narrative:

Todorov 5 stages of narrative!

I would recognise the first stage (the equilibrium) as the first couple of pan shots across the fields where restricted narration is used to show the fields however at this point we have seen no people and no representation of anything bad happening.

The disruption of the equilibrium would be the pan over the mobile, material covered in blood and the screaming from a woman where we can only see her feet on the floor (yet again using restricted narration.) This is because the audience now know something has happened due to a tense atmosphere being created so there has now been a disruption to what was calm.

The recognition of the disruption occurs when we see a man running towards his car who we assume to be the antagonist of the film who has caused the woman to be in pain. The male character starts rummaging through the boot of the car trying to find something to aid the woman which is the recognition that this may be a protagonist of the story.

Stage 4 the attempt to repair the disruption occurs when the man passes the woman a blanket to aid her in her struggles and the problem is therefore resolved.

The new equilibrium is a new life being born and our views from the beginning of the film have completely changed. The pan over the fields show peace and security, the lighting has got brighter to show happiness and the non diegetic music has now changed from an eerie sound to a softer tone of music to show closure.