Film analysis - Boy interrupted

Boy interrupted is a film based around a young boy and his struggle with depression and his eventual suicide. I chose to analysis this film as this film explores the same subject area as our second film and is a really interesting take on documentary film making.

 Boy interrupted follows the life of Evan Perry, a 15 year old boy who committed suicide. His parents Dana and Hart use this film to examine his extraordinary life and how it was affected by his dipolar depression. Through a lot of archive footage we follow Evan from being a baby up to his untimely death. In the film there is a lot of interview footage with the people who were involved in Evans life, this includes his family, friends, teachers and psychologist. The interview footage is rely nicely shot. The shots are all well lit, and in all the interviews we learn so much about the interviewers views. I think this says a lot about the interviewers and the technique they have used. In our documentary I would like to get similar responses, as the interviewee's are all extremely open and their answers are so descriptive.

 Another aspect of this film I enjoyed was the use of so much archive footage. Whilst I don't think we will have time to gather enough archive to achieve this, if we were to develop our film further this is definitely something I would like to explore. I think the cutting together of both archive and interview footage allows the audience to empathise more with the character, and I feel like I got to know Evan on a more personal level. This allows the audience to feel more involved in the documentary, and provides a more immersive experience.

 The majority of the film is spent trying to understand Evan, rather than his illness. I think this is brilliantly done, as it means the audience gets to see Evan from a relatives point of view, meaning we as an audience are more emotionally invested.

Overall the film is brilliantly shot and edited. Through their style, they have created a documentary that allows the audience to understand the contributor better, and it had interested me to learn more about the subject area.