Film Trailer Deconstruction

Film Plot A young girl, Baby Doll, is locked away in a mental asylum by

her abusive stepfather where she will undergo a lobotomy in five days' time. Faced with unimaginable odds, she retreats to a fantastical world in her imagination where she and four other female inmates at the asylum, plot to escape the facility. The lines between reality and fantasy blur as Baby Doll and her four companions, as well as a mysterious guide, fight to retrieve the five items they need that will allow them to break free from their captors before it's too late...

Trailer Analysis The trailer begins with a CU shot of a dead woman’s body being

uncovered by a sheet. A filter is used so that the effect is a washed out grey colour; this mirrors the death of the woman as all the life and colour has been drained out of the shot.

The main protagonist’s voice acts as a narration over the shots we see. She says “I lost everyone I ever loved”, this causes confusion and a sense of foreboding during the funeral scene where the main character is seen comforting her younger sister therefore foreshadowing the girls fate.

A series of low angle shots are used when presenting the step father, together with his menacing looks and the protagonist’s suspicious glances indicates to the audience that he is a villainous character or the antagonist of the film.

The use of the eagle eye shot is similar to that of Director, Zach Snyder’s previous film ‘Watchmen’. Clearly the Director wanted to incorporate the same sort of style so that fans of his work will react positively to his latest film.

The Protagonist continues to narrate the trailer; an extreme CU shot of her eye peering through a keyhole reinforces the narrators speech; “then they locked me away”. This shot has an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feel to it which was very likely a deliberate decision made by Snyder since in an interview he describes ‘Sucker Punch’ as “Alice in Wonderland… with machine guns!”

An emphasis on the eye of the protagonist is used in order to indicate to the audience the psychological subgenre of the film. The protagonists eyes are used as a gateway between reality and her fantasy world. All transitions from reality to fantasy occur through the use of her eyes.