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.
