Alicia Duffy Visual Analysis

The most beautiful man in the world is not a movie that would raise profound questions about the meaning of life or the lack of it. What it does is however to recreate an ordinary day of a little girl's life into a lyrical tale about her awakening, both metaphorically and objectively, for the world around her. In less than six minutes, this movie reveals with beauty and pure understanding the intimate world of children in which every little detail of living is experienced with sincerity, depth and the seriousness of a great event. The director, Alicia Duffy implies a truth of her own that is waiting to be read and sensed both through the visual language and clarity of this short film, and the aesthetic precision with which each shot is crafted.
The viewer is provoked and is left in anticipation to the very end of the movie. The most challenging answers come unexpectedly and in small packages. In this case, the prologue scene of the movie shows a close up of a little girl yawning while watching in front of the television screen. Her eyes do not sparkle with childish enthusiasm but blink with apathy and tiredness instead. The tight frames of the shot along with the murky lighting of the room suggest nothing but physical as well as emotional captivity. The typical for most children playfulness, vitality, and passionate emotionality are all restricted within the limited space of her home. The closed composition of the first five frames of the movie, shot in the house, generates a mood of prolonged lethargy, and a nervous atmosphere of inexorable boredom. What escalades up to the culmination of such a psychological tension is the continuous sound of a telephone ringing. The superficial calamity and the fragile silence of the scene have been irrevocably interrupted. Furthermore, the uneventful flow of the day is naturally interrupted as well. The entire scene is painted in monotonic colors. The sense of coldness and alienation in the house is increased even more with the background weary even voice of the mother, talking on the phone. There is nothing left for the girl to do except to search for a more welcoming environment in the world that is outside her window. A whole new world to be explored by her and she is giving into to it thoroughly and wholeheartedly. The girl does not spend her time thinking and judging the events; she just listens to the sound of the birds, the thunder in the sky, and the flyover with the fascination and curiosity as if perceived for the first time. Trying to escape the sultry atmosphere of the summer day and the boredom of a staying-at-home adult's casual life, she follows the breeze showing