Post 1, Group A--The Best Scenes of LION by Aly Hernandez

The film Lion by director Garth Davis revolved around a young boy named Saroo from a small village in India who becomes lost from his family and is eventually found by authorities where he is taken to a local orphanage to be adopted. He is eventually adopted by an Australian couple and raised in Australia. The first part of the film is particularly interesting to me because the director Garth Davis, uses cinematography to draw in the view by allowing them to see through the eyes of a three or four-year-old Saroo. In an interview with Andrew Parker, Director Garth Davis says, “It’s about slipping into Saroo’s experience to a point where you know what it’s like to struggle, become part of a loving family, and then move on into this modern world.” The director does this by placing the camera at level with Saroo’s height, which is about 4 feet above the ground in some scenes. One scene that especially stuck out to me was when he was walking through the crowded train station, the camera is at level with his height and we (the viewers) are overwhelmed and experience the fear of being alone and ignored by the crowd of people in a hurry. This scene is meant to make the viewer feel saddened and fearful for young Saroo. 

A few seconds later Saroo climbs onto a small post to overlook the crowd as he screams for his brother Guddu. The lens shifts from Saroo’s perspective to a long shot of Saroo looking over the crown from the post he is holding onto. This allows us the viewers to grasp the anxiety that Saroo is feeling in seeing the infinite crowd and the unlikeliness of Saroo’s possibility of finding his older brother Guddu. The camera focuses on this scene for a few moments so that the viewer can bask in the depth of the moment. The remainder of the film unfolds from Saroo’s childhood onto his adulthood mostly from his perspective, but occasionally shifting to other perspectives. 

The first part of the film focuses on a young Saroo, yet he hardly ever speaks. The fact that the director can convey so much emotion without the use of words is powerful. The angles and perspective used are well thought and used to make up for the lack of words. The most memorable moments throughout the film are when the director uses the environment and camera to express the emotions Saroo is feeling or to get a response out of the viewer.

This specific scene is enough to distill fear and protectiveness for children in general. The director intended to have the viewer relate to not only Saroo, but also to Saroo’s biological mother. In another scene later in the movie, Saroo’s mother is seen walking along the shore of a sea yelling for Saroo, searching for him among other young children around his age and height. The kids playing and swimming in the water tune her out and as the camera captures the scene from a distant. In the same time but in a different country, an adult Saroo is also walking along the shore of a different sea. The connectivity between this scene is meant to bring mother and son together and bring out the viewer’s “paternal instinct”.  

This is one of my all time favorite movies because it had many emotionally raw moments. This was the second time I have seen this film, I had never noticed the way the director portrayed a scene, and the intended effect of it.