Analysing of an Observational Documentary - Sister Helen (DOCUMENTARY UNIT)
Sister Helen (2002)
Synopsis: Sister Helen, is an emotional documentary about a woman who lost her husband and two sons. Helen decides to open up a home, for individuals who are trying to recover from alcohol and other difficult issues. Located at the South of the Bronx and it is also a documentary, about experiencing Helen's living routine and responsibilities at the home and with the residence living their as well. Having the technique known as "the fly on the wall" is the full time seeing Helen as the fly moving around on the wall and nobody else's story.
What Shots Were Used in the Documentary: When the documentary begins, their are multiple establishing shots of the South of the Bronx, showing shots of members of the public in their living state at the Bronx as well. It shows the tone of the documentary, how members of the public lived back in the early 2000s and the society of what the Bronx was about and liked. The documentary has a lot of continuous shots that follows Sister Helen around the house, the addicts that also live at the house. The majority focus is using continuous , establishments and tracking shots of Sister Helen. Going from walking around the streets of the Bronx, the house, visiting the graveyard of her passed away family and other detailed shots of the living state of Sister Helen and her "twenty one" addicts living their.
The Way It Looks & How the Story Feels: What was mostly interesting, was we never hear from any of the documentary filmmakers make conversation to Sister Helen and it's a strength that the focus is always on Sister Helen, where she makes conversations to the addicts, her daughter and other relatives that Sister Helen knew. It makes the documentary look and feel, a very personal story, nothing ever felt scripted and staged. I felt whenever the drama was happening especially, it looked real and extremely realistic. The story looks very relevant, about the struggles of alcohol, drugs, family and lost specially. I appreciated how much screen time was given not just to Sister Helen, but the many recovering addicts, the documentary explains fairly about the addicts background story and what their struggles are and how difficult it can be in reality about trying to tackle with your demons. For Sister Helen, it's very shocking to experience about how Sister Helen had lost her husband and two sons to crime and alcohol issues. Honestly what's very understandable, is why Sister Helen starts to look after twenty one addicts and herself thinks by doing this big responsibility, is a second chance for herself and to move on from the horrific past background Sister Helen went through.
What Does It Make Me Feel as an Audience Member: The documentary should be watched by many individuals, most importantly people around the world who do struggle with these types of realistic problems and that are happening all the time. All of the technical aspects feels very appropriate for this type of tone, by looking very gritty and poor looking about the problems of the society the Bronx is. Sister Helen as a person in my opinion, seemed a very powerful, tough and thoughtful person to everyone around her. For someone like Sister Helen, had worked and achieved something extremely incredible about how to be given a second chance and how impressive for someone like Sister Helen as well, had lived through very difficult events about losing family members and knew exactly how to get back on her feet.
The Way It Looks & How the Story Feels: What was mostly interesting, was we never hear from any of the documentary filmmakers make conversation to Sister Helen and it's a strength that the focus is always on Sister Helen, where she makes conversations to the addicts, her daughter and other relatives that Sister Helen knew. It makes the documentary look and feel, a very personal story, nothing ever felt scripted and staged. I felt whenever the drama was happening especially, it looked real and extremely realistic. The story looks very relevant, about the struggles of alcohol, drugs, family and lost specially. I appreciated how much screen time was given not just to Sister Helen, but the many recovering addicts, the documentary explains fairly about the addicts background story and what their struggles are and how difficult it can be in reality about trying to tackle with your demons. For Sister Helen, it's very shocking to experience about how Sister Helen had lost her husband and two sons to crime and alcohol issues. Honestly what's very understandable, is why Sister Helen starts to look after twenty one addicts and herself thinks by doing this big responsibility, is a second chance for herself and to move on from the horrific past background Sister Helen went through.
What Does It Make Me Feel as an Audience Member: The documentary should be watched by many individuals, most importantly people around the world who do struggle with these types of realistic problems and that are happening all the time. All of the technical aspects feels very appropriate for this type of tone, by looking very gritty and poor looking about the problems of the society the Bronx is. Sister Helen as a person in my opinion, seemed a very powerful, tough and thoughtful person to everyone around her. For someone like Sister Helen, had worked and achieved something extremely incredible about how to be given a second chance and how impressive for someone like Sister Helen as well, had lived through very difficult events about losing family members and knew exactly how to get back on her feet.
1. Needham, C. (1990) Sister Helen (2002). At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303394/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1 (Accessed 12/03/20)
Comments
Post a Comment