Ralph - A Short Film Analysis

Ralph Analysis

In Ralph, the camera is mainly handheld throughout and uses many close-ups shots of his face. The close-up shots are used to show Ralphs emotional state. Especially when he could not find the girls right number. He was getting annoyed and frustrated. There are also some scenes of long shots to establish the setting of the short film.

The sounds in this are all natural sounds that we hear every day: cars, traffic, and lots of people speaking at one on the street. These fit the setting and background well to make it look very busy. Although the background is noisy, it does not distract us from the main actors and what they are saying, because their voices are very loud and clear over the top.

Ralph only uses two props in this short film, a big suitcase and a piece of paper which he writes on. During the film he drags around the suitcase as if it is draining him. It could represent the process he is repeating, constantly trying to get hold of the girl. Although it is a burden, he needs to get hold of the girl, just like he needs his suitcase. He also has a piece of paper, which by the end of the film, is really warn out. This can sort of represent Ralph in some ways, and how he gets warn out during the film, from constantly calling different numbers to get hold of this girl and not succeeding.

As this is about a British boy who is travelling to France to see a girl, the language barrier plays a big part in this film. He has lots of trouble communicating with people and trying to understand what they are saying. This adds to the struggle of not being able to get hold of the girl, because he cannot seek help from anyone around him because they will not understand each other. Ralph is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a red shirt with the collar up, and a gold necklace. He can be seen as a stereotypical British teenager, and looks very out of place in the middle of France dressed like this. We see that he is not familiar with his surroundings when there is a shot of him standing in the middle of the station while people walk past. He doesn’t know where to go or what to do.

The main themes of this short film are loss and love. Ralph notices that the girl he visited already has a boyfriend, but while he’s there, he seeks love in another girl who works in the restaurant he went into for help.