I Feel Inspired

When developing the plot for my short film I felt a strong gravitation towards the idea of parallelism. I have always loved stories in which two seemingly unconnected characters come together in an unexpected way, but throughout the story there is also many similarities and parallels between the two. The idea for creating a short film involving parallelism was sparked by a couple different sources that I have encountered in my life, including 1Q84, Brokeback Mountain, and Your Name.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami -  This book tells the story of two characters, Aomame and Tengo. The story begins with Aomame who, after an encounter with a strange taxi driver, begins to see discrepancies in her reality. Each chapter alternates point of view so in the second chapter we are introduced to Tengo, a part time math teacher and part time struggling novelists. Now, while these two characters seem to have no correlation in any aspect of their lives Murakami does an excellent job of slowly weaving the two narratives together. In much of the book Aomame and Tengo do not interact, they live their own separate lives and deal with their own unique problems. I took inspiration in this story specifically from the subtle ways the stories intertwine and the parallels drawn between the two characters. Unlike with this book, I don't plan on having the characters in my short film ever meet face-to-face.







Brokeback Mountain (2005) - To be honest, this film isn't the greatest film ever made, in fact it isn't even close, but what it does an excellent job at is its parallel narrative. This film tells the story of two men, Ennis and Jack, who begin to form a close relationship after both working on a job herding cattle. The film follows each of their perspectives and shows their lives apart from each other as well as when they are spending time together. The both experience similar experiences in their personal lives and go through similar hardships that both bring them together and drive them apart. I loved how this film portrayed two people who were going through the same situation and the different ways they approached the conflict. In my short film I want to be able to show a similar situation in which two character are going through the same issues, but handle them in unique ways that represent themselves as a character.






Your Name (2016) - This Japanese animated film does a spectacular way of intertwining the lives of two protagonists. This film follows Taki and Mitsuha, two high school students who live very normal, average lives. Taki and Mitsuha live contrasting lives in that Taki is a city boy living in the heart of Tokyo, and Mitusha lives in a more traditional setting in the countryside. Their lives connect one day when the suddenly wake up in each others bodies. In order to try and understand this strange occurrence they begin to leave each other notes and soon for a close friendship. They stories begin to grow closer as they attempt to meet up, but a dazzling comet alters their lives in a surprising and mysterious way. What first appear to be two completely contrasting characters are brought together by a common event and are shown to be more similar then they thought. What I loved about the portrayal of this story was the contrast between the characters and how, in an everyday situation they would have never met or became friends, but through their shared experiences were able to find a common ground.


Sources : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10357575-1q84, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain, www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/your_name_2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Name