Thriller Dvd Cover

Textual Analysis - Banlieue 13 (District 13)

Director – Pierre Morel

Producer – Luc Besson

The scene from the film I am focussing on is the most famous scene. When K2 and the other gang members (Antagonists) chase Leito (Protagonist). This is the most famous scene because this was one of the first movies to introduce parkour free running instead of stunt doubles and wires.

K2 and his group are denoted as thugs you can see this through the mise en scene because they are holding guns and are wearing lots of jewellery and ‘street’ clothes, which is a stereotype of a thug or gangster. You can see that building and area they are in is supposed to be depicted as a ‘run – down’ area because the colouration that has been put in the scene, probably through a camera filer, is very dark and tinted. Another way you can tell that the place is neglected is by the graffiti on the walls, rubbish bags in the corner of corridors and dirt all over the buildings. Although this is an action scene, so the shots are very short and sharp, you can easily observe the way the scene has been shown.

Although Leito hasn’t been introduced into the film until this point, you can see straight away that he is a brave, clever character. You can see this because he manages to ‘out run’ a dozen people with guns, without getting a single injury. Also, you can see he is brave because he jumps from building to building without any denotation of fear.

To think about the film in general, this could be an ideology of Pierre Morel (Director) that society is turning into a badly maintained, criminalized civilisation. So he reflects this through his approach of violence and abuse in a future set film.

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