Review of The Man in the High Castle

During the opening of the title sequence for The Man in the High Tower this frame can bee seen 13 seconds in, this shot clearly demonstrates the genre of the narrative through different techniques. The genre of the narrative is alternative history drama, it relates to my idea because its relation to the Nazis and drama. The dominant colour of this frame is black and white and also the use of blood red for The Parteiadler and the Rising Sun flag. This gives the audience some idea on what the series is going to be about, the blood red of the symbols on the grey U.S shows that they are possibly head of a bloody rule over the country. The red in contrast to the grey shows that the Nazi party and Japanese Empire are the anti-heros of this narrative because of the blood red colour and that the American population is seen as broken and disorganized because of  the light, broken up grey colour. The image of the USA also highlights the major rivers that run through the country, this gives the illusion of the company cracking. This makes the audience believe that either the Nazis are corrupt or the US population is detraining.









In this shot the audience can see a close up of George Washington's (One of the most influential men in American history) face with the shadow of some German paratroopers over his right cheek. Because of the placement of these soldiers they give the illusion of George crying as it looks like they are rolling down his face. This represents the defeat of America and the sorrow of its people (The crying). The Nazis in this shot are again seen as the anti-hero's as the colour of the shadows is black and they are placed over the white/grey face of George Washington. The sound track that is being played over the is Edelweiss, a German folk song about a flower, the Edelweiss white flower. This is a diametrical sound as what's happening in the extract is the invasion of America by Nazi Germany which would involve the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. The song sets the tone of the extract as it is a slow tempo piano with a female singer singing in a very high pitch German accent, it makes the audience feel disheartened and melancholy.





In this shot we can the statue of Liberty with a smoking plane being projected over her, covering her eyes and what looks like the stripes of the American flag in the shadows. I like this shot because of the meaning behind it, the white smoke being projected over the statues face represents the American inhabitants being blinded and deceived, forced to look away from the true America which is being shown in this shot by the flag in the shadows. This shot is an eye level medium shot, this has been used so that all of the objects within the shot can be seen linking together just by their placement within the frame. Like with the last shot the dominant colours within this shot is black and white, this clearly expresses the genre of the extract, Historic-Fiction drama. It does this because the black and white not only show that there will be some form of conflict but also the two colours are what we see any pictures of footage from that era in, telling us that it was filmed from that era.

In this shot a statue of a golden eagle can be seen with the German Reichsadler projected over it. The bald eagle statue represents American freedom and way of life which is being overwhelmed by the Nazi Eagle symbol which represents German power. This clearly demonstrates the extracts genre as not necessarily an action film but more of a drama as the country would have already been taken over (Symbolized in this shot by the Reichsadler smothering the bald eagle)