Dialogue is also a key tool in disconcerting and implicating the
spectator in the film. Victor speaks to the camera, breaking the fourth wall
between him and the spectator, connecting reality and fiction in a pertinent
monologue in which he wants to explain his feelings and thoughts about the
(un)reality he is living to those who are observing him. His words are the
words of a diegetic character to his extra-diegetic audience, assuming
therefore the existence of the camera as an observer and recognized filter; in
Lacanian terms, identifying the existence of the camera its influence can
resultantly be ignored. Indeed, the cinematic reality and the fiction of the
film find each other in two images where the camera and the tripod are
slightly visible: the reflection on the tap and in Victor’s pupils. Nevertheless,
and in spite of the importance of the sequence in which Victor speaks directly
to the camera, it is feasible that Luna also works as a silent film: muting the
volume, the film conserves its meaning and the story is not significantly
affected. The movements of camera, the corporeal and facial expressions of
the characters and the images speak for themselves. In this way the dialogue
and soundtrack are simply additions, serving to enrich the meaning of the
film.
Symbolism has a remarkable relevance in Luna. The mirror as a
reflection and reproduction of images is employed to show Victor in two
specific moments, before and after the incident that changes his life,
displaying two ‘different’ people. The mirror and constant reflections in
different objects, function, in this way, as a simplistic, but nonetheless
illustrative and useful metaphor of the reproduction of the image in digital
media, the copy or the simulacrum. The mirror is also an important prop and
feature of the mise-en-scéne in that it permits visual access to the story and
characters in the scene in which Victor speaks from his room to Ania
(Katarzyna Rozanska), who is sitting in a different room. Here the simple
positioning of the camera and a mirror allows the spectator to simultaneously
perceive both actors and the existing distance between them. And there are
other moments of symbolism which evoke the potential unreality of the
events: thus, the creak of the door or an alarm clock that advances by three
minutes, hints that we can be observers of a dreaming state.
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