Analyze how verbal AND visual features of a text (or texts) you have studied are used to give audiences a strong idea.
Theme: Power of imagination
Joe Wright’s film Atonement is the story told through the eyes of main protagonist Briony Tallis. The story centers on her attempts to wash away her guilt and find atonement for her actions that began with a lie that ruined the lives and happiness of her beloved sister, Cecilia, and her sister’s lover, Robbie. Her actions forever changed the course of not only their lives but also her own. These actions were the outcome of mere overactive imagination of a young girl, which is a central theme, which dictates the entire sequence of events, which follow in this film. Her overactive imagination has a far greater power than she can comprehend. At this point in the film Briony is a victim of her own naivety, in which her imagination can lapse into overdrive, leaving her hung and obsessed with her egotistic ideas? This obsession leaves Briony in a state of mind that overwhelms all logic and questions, leaving no room for anyone else’s side of the story and it is not until later on in the film that she realizes she has made a mistake and begins to full apprehend the gravity of her crime. Throughout the film a distorted reality is established, as the film follows brionys account of the events, which are written in her novel. Her imagination results in the ruining of many lives, and in the conclusion of the film it is also the final way briony is able to find peace in her lifelong quest to atone for the sinful acts she committed, therefore demonstrating the key theme of the power of imagination. The director effectively utilizes an array of visual and oral text features such as dialogue, lighting, costuming and sound to convey this main message.
The beginning scene of the film opens with the camera trained on Briony as she sits at her desk writing on her typewriter This image sets the foundation for the rest