Textual Analysis of 'Awake' (Danny Blackstock, 2013) by Chayana Forde

Awake

'Awake' is a short film that follows a boy who seems to be the only inhabitant in the location that he is in. 

As he wakes up we watch him in his everyday situation, which would be called the equilibrium in Todorov's narrative theory. He gets up, looks out of the window in hopes that the situation would be different this time, then sighs before walking back into his room. He steps into a pile of clothes, picks up an item of clothing, and smells it before deciding that it is okay to wear.

This plays to the stereotype that boys have messy bedrooms and rarely put clothes to wash before wearing them again. He then goes on to have the ever so simple breakfast of nutella on toast, and places the dirty dish upon the growing pile of undone washing, which, again, shows him as a stereotypical teenaged boy, but also shows that he has been living in this state for a long period of time.

In the narration of this scene,we are told that he doesn't know how he got there or why. This suggests to the audeince that he could be existing in an alternate reality, or a reality that he is the last human left on earth. This causes engima, as the audience is left guessing the reason for why he is where he is.

As the character walks, he notes how it gets boring after a week, especially when you are alone, then proceeds to pick up a garden gnone. This shows how the character was so desperate for the comapny that he desided to find comfort in an object that resemebles a human being, despite calling it stupid.

Despite the coloqul tone of the film, it still keeps building on the enigma, as shown through the fact tthat his car was full of water when he wanted to drive it. However, we aren't given long to think about it, as the character seems to move on to talk about a new subject, which shows the short attention span of a teenager.

The new subject that he talks about is about some hobbies that he has decided to take up. He says that he is having fun, but that is contrasted with the fact that he is lying down looking bored, and playing mundane games like dominoes and building card houses.

When staking the dominos, when he knocks them down, one of them stays standing, which could symbolise how he feels like he is the only left in this reality as it seems like everybody else has been whipped out. Moreover, the shot of him destroying the card house could sysmbolise the fact that he is in his hous, but it does not feel like his home.

He then goes on to play with a toy car, but soon gets bored and places drops it into the fish tank. This is the second time that a car has been connected with water, which suggests that this is a recurring theme in the piece.