Tragedy and Darkness in Storytelling

When it comes to tragedy and darkness in film and storytelling, I feel that it’s pretty necessary that darkness to be shown to some degree. After all, real life is dark sometimes. While not every story has to portray darkness exactly as it is in the real world, it does need to portray darkness to some extent. And without darkness, how can you ever have light. How can a story reach happy points without something dark happening? Have you ever seen a film where everything was going great for all the characters the whole running time… me neither, that’d be a pretty boring story.

The short film, “Fridge,” presented a type of darkness that I think worked very well for that film. None of the characters were really what anyone would consider to be the greatest people in the world. It was interesting to see that the only two people who helped get the boy out of the fridge were two homeless drunks. In real life, the people willing to help or do what’s right aren’t always the people who appear “good.”

I found the German film, “World of Glory,” very interesting. The static shots, odd and sometimes disturbing images, sound effects, lack of movement from the people, and the main character’s almost lifeless performance all gave the film a really dark and creepy vibe. It allowed me to really feel how isolated and empty the main character was.