I've a huge interest in film gambits, "gambits" being a chess term for the opening moves of a game. The term can apply to storytelling as well. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" was a gambit, as was "Call me Ishmael." Here's the the gambit for the terrific TV miniseries, "Olive Kitteridge."
The story is about a woman suffering from chronic depression in a small New England town.
It opens with silhouettes of buildings set against unsettling dawn skies. You get the feeling that something's wrong in this town, and has been wrong for a long time.
The pounding surf intensifies the mood.
Now here's (above) where the really original part begins. A fishing boat is seen in an ominously tempestuous sea. One still frame can't do this image justice. A ship in a daytime shot usually symbolizes hope and escape. Not so here.
Far from being a symbol for escape, the boat may be seen as a sentry preventing escape and confining the townspeople to their prison.
The film trucks out of a porcelein image of the ship. The painted image is a happy one but the audience knows better. Seeing the creepy ship in this nice old-fashioned context firms up our conviction that whatever's wrong in this town has deep roots, and that the towns people might even have had a hand in covering it up.
Smash cut to a street in the town where a woman is discovered lying dead on the ground. The music and art direction lead us to believe that she was somehow killed by a supernatural thing. It capiciously felled an innocent woman and left her limp as a rag doll on the ice.
This isn't a horror film, so the supernatural element I'm talking about isn't a plot point. Even so, it's important. Sherlock Holmes stories are like that. There always seems to be a supernatural subtext in them, and it makes the story more interesting.
Fascinating, eh?
