Highrise

Directed & written by: Gabrielle Russell

A mother watches her baby crawl towards an open window of her highrise flat and does nothing.

The opening shot of the film is of a 'council estate' which shows several blocks of flats until it pans across a particular flat. The camera seems to zoom in and appears to go through the flat where we meet the two characters of the story. First of all, we meet a baby playing with its dolls on a sofa and another person who we believe is the baby's Mother on another sofa. In only a few seconds, the audience knows a lot about the main characters and their lifestyles because of the opening shot; which establishes what sort of people they are, from their geo-demographic and location.

From looking at the flat, baby and mother, you can see that they are most probably living in poverty. Both of the characters clothes seem filthy and this is represented more on the baby; babies tend to become messy but this goes to show that the baby isn't getting enough attention as she should. As the camera pans around the living room, we can see all the items for a baby, a pushchair, toys and a baby bottle. It is interesting when we see all these props because there are not any props to show that there is a Father figure in their lives. We can see from the state of the room that the Mother is a single parent struggling with looking after the baby all by herself.

Most of the flat wallpaper has come off, probably from the other residents ruining it throughout the years but one side of the wall has blue wallpaper. Blue represents sadness and loneliness which goes well with the film's narrative because you can see that the Mother is unhappy with her life. As the baby crawls over the window, the Mother does try and stop her but she falls over and so does the milk bottle the Mother was holding. We get a close up of the milk bottle in slow motion, dripping onto the floor; this represents how something can drop so easily, and then the film cuts to the baby still crawling to the window. One more thing I will comment on from a semiotic level, the scene when the Mother steps out into the darkness, waiting for her baby to fall to her death, everything is in darkness except the Mother's face and the baby buggy in the distance which has a little shed of light on it. This means that the baby is still the main focus of the story, even though we can't visually see it.

There is no background music throughout the film except the sound coming from the TV that the Mother is watching. I feel that the sound coming through the television is enough to create mood and meaning to the piece. What the Mother is watching seems to be 'Daytime' TV as it looks like she is watching a game show. The Mother appears bored and starts to take the baby's milk bottle from the side and pour some of it onto her wrist and taste it.

Even though the short film is just over three minutes long, the director really gets her message across in so little time. It is very powerful piece of art and it really gives you a taste of reality and how people struggle.