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Clip description
After the title of the film, a man and a woman establish the conflict over what they would like to make a film about. A dramatic scene follows showing the use of a pram in a terrorist kidnapping. The film then cuts to a long scene in hospital about motherhood.
Curator’s notes
This sequence graphically captures the clash of ideas between a man and a woman about what is an important story to tell. She wants to make a film about childcare but he’s more interested in terrorism.
The power of the sequence is in using a pram as a symbol of maternity which disrupts a terrorist kidnapping. The scene is high action, using fast cutting and action-packed shooting. It visually reminds us of the use of the pram as a symbol in Sergei Eisenstein’s historical Russian epic Battleship Potemkin (1925). The whole sequence is laden with visual, political and historical references.
The cut to the next scene – a woman’s starkly simple and intimate account of new motherhood – is extremely dramatic. This voice is laid over a long tracking shot in a hospital corridor. It is the contrast between these two scenes, each using different cinematic devices, that sets us up for the rest of the film. The pram remains a recurring motif throughout.
