The Black Hole

Genre Conventions Research: The Black Hole

The film The Black Hole begins with an iris out revealing a desolate office, presumably sometime at night. The camera travels past a cluttered desk over to a medium close up of a man, standing by a photocopier, looking dejected and tired. The colour scheme of the film features heavy use of grey and black. This could possibly be to convey a sense of how the man is feeling – he is extremely bored, exhausted and clearly wants to be anywhere but at work.

The beeping of the copy button is the only sound heard, and it is heard at a very loud volume. It may have been presented to us in this way so that it may add to the irritation of the man not being able to work it properly and to make us feel sympathetic to his plight.

A piece of paper with a large black hole printed on it is shown sliding out on to the printing cradle from a high angle. As the paper with the black hole on it slides out on to the cradle, the shot slows down somewhat, possibly to add emphasis on and draw the audience’s attention to the piece of paper – this is the black hole of the title, and something odd and eerie may be about to happen.

There is a close up of the man’s face, which is filled with confusion and alarm. The filmmakers may be trying to convey, through the character of the man, what they possibly want the audience to be feeling, and that they are following the events with the man and seeing them unfold with him.

The use of camera shots and sound become more bizarre and elaborate after the man is shown dropping a coffee cup through the black hole. The man is shown peering over the black hole, looking down at us from the black hole’s point of view. This possibly presents a shift in power – the black hole, in some way, is in charge here, and it is slowly drawing the man in, possibly leading him to meet a dire end. There is also a low, ominous drone which accompanies the black hole. This adds emphasis to the idea that there is something not quiet right about the black hole’s existence.

The drone of the black hole becomes heightened and more apparent as the man puts his arm through it to retrieve the cup. The drone may have been utilisied by the filmmakers in order for it to act as a form of dialogue, saying more about the weird and abnormal nature of the black hole better than any other sound could or would.

The man is then presented as taking the black hole over to a vending machine and using it to steal a bar of chocolate. This is a key character change in that the filmmakers now establish the man’s greed and glutinous nature and sets up the events which are about to ensue. The decision by the filmmakers to show the man in this light is possibly to pose the question to us, as viewers, if we would do the same if we had an object of power such as this, and if we would, would we do more?

There is a tight close up of the man as he stares greedily and covetously at a door reading “Keep Out.” This further makes his greedy nature apparent, and also perhaps infers the idea that a terrible and awful occurrence is about to take place.

A medium close up follows of the man shown entering the room, turning the lights on (which flicker, ominously, giving out an eerie, strange, and truly bad feeling to the audience) and sticking the black hole over the door of a safe which is locked inside the room. The man is then portrayed as looking about him suspiciously, possibly paranoid that he is being watched. This, again, indicates his greedy nature, and also the idea that there is some guilt in him over what he is about to do.

The man is then shown to take out bundles of cash from out of the safe, via the black hole. These actions are shown in a repetitive pattern, with a shot of the money followed by a medium close up of the man's face, brimming with guilty delight. This repetitive pattern possibly heightens the character's sense of greed and his hunger for this money building with each successive shot. Also, throughout this scene, the drone of the black hole becomes increasingly creepy and apparent in the scene, which helps to add to the disturbing atmosphere of the piece.

The man is then shown, through a single tight shot, crawling through the black hole, in to the safe, wanting the last of the money. The filmmakers show his crawling in an uninterrupted take, presenting to us the full extent of his greed and where his endeavours are about to take him.

The paper with the black hole printed on it then falls, keeping the man seemingly trapped in the safe for good. The camera begins to pull back away from the safe, until it is at a fair distance from it. The sound of the man tapping on the door from the inside, along with the beeping of the copy machine, fuse together to create one final burst of sound before cutting to black, cutting to an unending black hole, in a way. The camera pulling back could possibly be so that the audience finally understand the full weight of what has happened to the man and that we can no longer be a part of it.

The film, which has a very surreal feel to it, comes full circle with the ending. It ends in the only way it could, that is with the destruction of man as a result of his curiosity. The film left me feeling very impressed, as it managed to convey a very serious message about the greedy nature of man in only a couple of minutes and still managed to be extremely effective at the same time.