Analysis of "Love Me Or Leave Me Alone"

"Love Me Or Leave Me Alone"

Directed by Duane Hopkins

A teenage boy and girl try and understand their feelings about eachother, set in a rural/countryside area. Focusing on the heartbreak and difficulties of first love.

Analysis:

The director's primary aim in this film is to get across the difficulties of first love and what you have to face. This is done by using themes such as love,teenagers,depression,sadness and relief. Using these themes Hopkins creates a narrative that the target audience can relate too. Being a social realism short film it is effective in relating to the audience and bringing up life situations that people sympathise with. Using the rural enviornment creates a sense of isolation and throughout the film the characters isolate themselves from each other and making each other vulnerable, the rural area adds to the effect but it also adds a romanticism to it.

This is why I liked the film because it dealt with social realism very well, which the Hopkins intended to do, the main focus being the audience sympathising and relating to the characters in the film.

The film uses several key effects to enhance it's purpose. One being the low key lighting, this enhances the themes of depression and sadness but also comes back to the effectivness of social realsim in the film, keeping it simple yet interesting. Another technique used was the harsh enhanced sounds, particularly when the female character is walking down the road alone. The soundtrack and sound effects mislead the audience into thinking that something is going to happen to the girl, keeping up the suspense.

The films form and structure links directly to the themes and subject matter because it is a linear narrative, continuing with a sense of time, meanwhile using sharp cuts and different editing effects such as low key lighting to create the mood/themes of the film.