describe and respond to one featured film you’ll be watching as if you were visiting the world it depicts. How is this world similar to the one you spend your non-viewing time in? How is it different? Which aspects of culture and society are emphasized in this world? Which aspects are de-emphasized? Which aspects are ignored outright?
You find yourself in a strange country…or maybe on a distant planet. It’s hard to tell. How did you get here, anyway? The folks there do some things that seem familiar and normal to you…but do other things that seem strange and at times bizarre. How do you describe this for the folks back home?
You’ll have a personal, emotional sense about the answers to these questions—a ‘gut reaction’. When you’re writing your response, feel free to include this ‘gut reaction’…but also remember to examine it. You might find reasons for it that you weren’t expecting, and that have something to do with the unique package of personal experience and cultural learning that you possess.
Of course, you’re not all on your own in the strange world you’re reporting on. You have field guides, in the form of some readings. You may find that one of them helps you understand the world of the film you’re responding to very well. You may find that more than one of them offers different and equally useful ways of understanding the film’s world. Good, bad or indifferent, a few words about one of these guides will be a useful and helpful part of your response.
The form these response take is largely up to you. You can choose to write it up as a formal diary or journal entry. You can be more informal and choose to write postcard to the folks back home; you can be creative. If clear, consistent formats are your thing, you can write your response the same way. The only ground rules are that each of your response need to be around 150 words in length, and address some formal and/or thematic aspect(s) of the fictional world of the film, your personal reaction(s) to the film and its world, and how well (or poorly) one or more of the readings helps you reconcile the film and your reactions to it.
The most important part of this assignment is to get you engaged with the film and reading material, by integrating both of them with your own experience and ideas.
Film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpbq7hriLpE&ab_channel=hargo1962