Kevin Tang took me up on my offer to add more content to Yiffy Times, and from time to time will be submitting new material.
DIVERGENT (2014)
Director: Neil Burger
Writers: Veronica Roth, Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor
Main Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Kate Winslet
REVIEW:
On the 11th of April, 2014, a new dystopian film was released and it was called Divergent. Many critics have acclaimed it to be the best movie of 2014 and it’s “better than the book”.
What makes the film so good is in the characters’ costumes. In the story, civlians are either sent to their ‘faction’ or ‘factionless’. The people whom are factionless have appearals like the homelesses whilst the people whom are in their own factions are giving tidy clothings. This showed the severeness of the disparity between those who obey the totalitarian political system and those who don’t, thus bringing out the theme of the story, “What makes you different, makes you dangerous.”
The movie includes an elite of musicians and artists that makes the film score different from most of other films, including artists like BANKS, Woodkid, and Ellie Goulding. For example, when Tris has to get on the train, a fast paced background music plays. This matches with Tris’ nervousness and the metal sound effects in the music makes it more fitting to the surroundings, because metal symbolizes the strength of Tris.
The shock value in the film also made it to be critics’ highly acclaimed movie. For example, when Eric pushes Christina from the bridge after Eric sympathized Christina, the scene shocked the whole audience. Another notable scene is when Four threw knifes at Tris. The director used close-ups and and sudden fast-paced film scores to present the nervousness to the audience.
Although some shocking scenes did present the professionality of the actors, the characters heavily relied on external factors like the music and sound effects. For example, when Four told Tris to train how to conquer fears in his mind, Tris’ face and feels emotionless. And when Tris entered her ‘fear landscape’, she did not present any fear, but rather an emotionless face. The scene made the audience nervous because of the music accompanied along with the faded colours.
Despite of the little flaws mentioned above, Divergent is overall an exciting and stunning movie.
by Kelvin Tang (23/8/2014)
Furry Times 