Framing in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
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As we discussed in class, the framing in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul almost entirely contains the characters in a confined space. One of my favorite instances of this is when Emmi and Ali are waiting for their order to come at the restaurant where “Hitler used to eat.”
After one of the most uncomfortable waiter-and-diner scenes imaginable, the camera framing moves from medium close-up to a long-shot. Emmi and Ali are very small, and they are dwarfed by the dining room’s structure. I see this as a way of expressing the insurmountable social circumstances that Emmi and Ali are going to face after their wedding. This is not going to be a socially sanctioned relationship. The subsequent scene reinforces this. Emmi calls her children to announce her matrimony, to which they react with utter disgust and contempt.
Do you recall any other scenes where the framing or staging expresses the difficulty of Emmi and Ali’s situation?