Textual Analysis Of The Human Centipede

The human centipede is a story of a German doctor who kidnaps three tourists and joins them surgically, mouth to anus, forming a "human centipede". It stars Dieter Laser as the villain, Dr. Heiter, with Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, and Akihiro Kitamura as his victims. Six also stated that inspiration for the film came from Nazi medical experiments carried out during World War II, such as the actions of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz concentration camp.





MISE EN SCENE
The human centipede is very typical, not particulary in the storyline but in the props and location used to create the predicament that the three tourists get into. Firstly they use phones to firstly communicate to each other which represents contemporary society with the technological advancement of society. When they have met they travel by a car going through the woods, the car then recieves a punctured tyre and the girls are left stranded. The props used in the opening sequence are unlucky props of which is how the story begins and the girls fate is decided. By the terms "unlucky props" i mean the broken cars, broken telephones etc.

Due to being left stranded in the woods with no mobile phone or mode of transport they are unable to escape the predicament which by its self gives a sense of horror, everyone's worst nightmare is to be left stranded in the woods so the audience can relate to them. The woodland location that the girls are stranded in is very typical, the "woods" or "woodland" has connotations of darkness, evil, mysterious and unknown. The location that they end up is a dutch neighbourhood, this gives the sense that they are vulnerable as they are American tourists, do not know the area and can't even speak the language in order to seek assistance. In terms of costumes, everything is relatively stereotypical, the young American tourists are in dresses and heels ready to go out and the surgeon that they come across is wearing a shirt and trousers so everything is pretty regular.

Further on in the trailer, occupation costumes are also very stereotypical, as the man is a surgeon is dressed in a long white jacket that u would see many sergeons wear. The occupation of a "surgeon" is juxtaposed in this movie. Surgeons are commonly seen as heros and they perform operations that save peoples lives, but in this movie, he performs an operation that is more of a twisted experiment that puts each of their lives in jerperdy. In terms of the props used by the surgeon it is all very stereotypical to his professions, hospital and operative equipment such as knives, saws, saringes, hopsital beds etc.

There are iconic colours and props used throughout the trailer, when the girls first meet the surgeon, he is in a black shirt. The colour black has connotations of darkness and evil. One of the women is dressed in grey, this may appear to be slightly ambiguous. As white has connotations of heaven, purity and justice and on the other hand black has connotations of darkness and evil, grey may appear to represent something in between the both of those, almost an idea of pergatory and that her fate is undecided. There are also iconic props of horror movies such as knives that are present in this trailer.

CAMERA
The trailer is fairly long with it being over 3 minutes. The beggining of the trailer starts off with limited cuts but the pace increases with rapid close up cuts. During a period of 20seconds there is 13 cuts which alternates from close up to medium shots of the characters and props used in the trailer. The fast cuts seem to give the viewer an idea of the climax of the film, also as the cuts are very fast it builds suspense and tension to what is happening. There is a mixture of title slides throughout that almost tell the storyline.

There is a closeup of a man with his mouth tied which then turns to an extreme close up of his eyes, this is to show his facial expressions as he is extremely distressed and terrified. Throughout the trailer it alternates from long shots to medium shots to close ups of which gives us a sense of the location and the facial expressions, this is used to build an atmosphere and imagery.

There is a long shot of the car driving through the woods and then a close up of the punctured tyre, this has been put there so we fully understand the situation and what has happened. When the surgeon opens the door to the 2 helpless American tourists, there is an over the shoulder shot, this is very affective in enforcing the storyline. This camera angle may represent that he is now in control of the situation. When the surgeon is walking down the stairs there is a high angled pan of which is also a tilt. This has many connotations. As he is walking down it may represent that he is evil and going beneath ground level of which promotes religious ideologies of hell. A low angel medium shot is also very affective where the dimented sergeon is in his sergical outfit holding a saringe, the low angle gives him the representation of being powerful and fully in control.

ENCODING/DECODING
The preferred reading of the film will be influenced by the film creators to aid the emotions of shock and scariness. The shock element comes from the twisted story line on the other hand the scariness comes from the audience not knowing if the tourists will get out of the predicament that they are in. There is almost an element of reality too. As there were Nazi experiments during the war of which surgeons tried many delusional sickening things to jews using human bodies as test dummies.

There are many representations that we can elicit from the film. These predominately include gender, occupation and nationality. The representation of gender is through the stereotypes of male and female. The malevolent surgeon is the key male in the film and he has full control of the situation and all of the vulnerable peoples lives. On the other hand the female tourists are seen to be innocent, weak and vulnerable which may link to common contemporary stereotypes of the male figures being in control and strong and females being delicate and precious.

In terms of Nationality, this has many representations and may cause some ethical issues. The malevolent surgeon is German and the weak tourists are American. This may link to Nazi' ideologies influencing imagery that germans are bad. Nazi' ideologies of indoctrination are commonly linked, this may be shown in the film as he makes them think he is going to help them but then puts them in danger, very much sounds like Hitlerism.

Lastly, the representation of a surgeons occupation is played with as they are usually represented to be life savers and strong genuine people. But in this case the surgeon is demented and evil as he has a twisted experiment in mind.

The main gratifications offered are those of entertainment and social interaction. The entertainment is received by the target audience through the twisted, shocking storyline that they wouldn't usually receive in day-to-day life. It provides energy as it provokes the emotion of fear and shock. It also influences social interaction due to the ethical issues that the film may rise through representations and the storyline. People may talk about whether the film was good or not and whether somethings should have even been allowed to be filmed.

The main ideologies are shown mainly through gender but also nationality. It is shown through gender through the stereotypes of males and females but also it deals with the stereotypes of nationality influencing historic knowledge of countries.

Once again the film company that contributed in making the film is shown at the beginning of the trailer, this is used to promote the company but also so that the target audience will eventually recognise the brand and will watch other horror movies made by that brand.

EDITING

At the beginning of the trailer there aren't many cuts, this is to show the storyline aswell as it promoting ideas that everything is regular with a slow pace. This then dramatically increases to influence tension and atmosphere, the quick cuts create pace of which makes the audience feel on edge and its signifies the extent of where the climax happens.

There is no continuity as this will slow the trailer down, they want to create a fast pace with a scary atmosphere to draw the target audience in. The technique used in order to do this is called jump cutting. Cross dissolves are another technique that is used in the trailer to merge scenes together in order to create almost a short story to the trailer, although the events may not happen like that in the film, it is created in the trailer to add a more dramatic storyline.

Throughout the trailer it fades out from black. The colour black has many connotations in itself promoting ideologies of evil and darkness. The fade out from black shows how the story line is evolving. The fade out from black constantly goes to a screen of writing of which narrates the the storyline for example "the demented surgeon...to perform the unspeakable".

Throughout the trailer there is a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound is offered through the voices of the characters which includes; conversations, screaming, whispering etc. The Non-diegetic sound is offered through the backing track, this also influences drama and tension as well as pace to the trailer.

All of this creates an atmosphere of fear.

GENRE

The genre is obviously horror as the film is all about provoking fear. It also fits into a slight sub-genre of sci-fi as it deals with subjects that have never been performed in today's society excluding the Nazi' era.