Documentary Reviews

Single Mother, Only Daughter 

Set in the towns of Los Angeles and Hong Kong, this documentary starts with a contrast between the two cities roads, enticing the audience. This set up shows how these two cities are  similar in the way they have tall buildings and busy roads, but also shows how there worlds apart in relation to layout and looks. These two places are home to the two main characters discussed in the documentary, a daughter and her single mother who brought her up all by herself. The daughter is talking to her mother the whole time on the phone, talking about what documentary she wished to make and how the idea of one on her mother was floating around. The connection and relationship the audiences gains from the documentary is shown through the powerful images and clips from the daughters childhood with her mother. The voice overs add to the feelings these images and videos are conveying as they relate to what emotions they want the audience to feel. For example, when they daughter is talking about missing her mother and feeling like she abandoned her, home videos of the mother and daughter playing together when the daughter was young are shown, making the audience sympathise for them. Other techniques like close ups and over the shoulder shots do this as well, showing a well thought out layout for this documentary. This documentary also spoke about mental health and the impact this had on the daughter as her mother suffers from depression. So not only is this a story of the bonds of a single mother and daughter relationship, it's also a story of mental health and how it can affect those lives around us. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary as the bonds of family are always a favourite of mine. 

On Loop

Completely different to Single Mother, Only Daughter, this documentary dabbles on the line between it being an animation and real life. The opening scene automatically drew me in, as it uses the technique of making the audience feel as though they are the person in this documentary. The camera makes the audience feel as though they are waking up by the scene showing light then going black, reoccuring to the sound of yawning. It then goes on to use another technique of splitting the scene into 9 different boxes, each with their own movements and look, but they all match up, not perfectly but they still match up. The whole documentary the audience is made to feel they're the ones experiencing this as you take the position of what you would be looking at if you were lying down. As the audience you only see from the chest down, with voice overs sounding it with thoughts as to what would be running through your head if you were there. Although nothing much happens throughout this documentary, the techniques used make you think and question everything as it goes on. For this reason I would say that I enjoyed watching this documentary better than Single Mother, Only Daughter as it was something unique.