From watching the film from the audience's persepective, we can presume that the working class
people in this film are part of the lower class group due to substandard
housing from what we can tell when Swiftys mother is approached by bailiffs for
insufficient funds, rescued by her son with the little amount of money he
earned from scrap dealing. Arbor falls into the lower class families as well
evident from how he tries to act as a fatherly figure in his family by working
the same job as Swifty to earn money for his mother alongside all of the
brothers sleeping on the sofas in the living room instead of having their own
bedrooms. The clothing that Arbor wears is a worn out tracksuit which is a
cheap choice of clothing that suggests how poor the mother is and how contempt
the protagonist is at wearing this style of clothing. The bullying from the
students that pass his house and describe the housing as it being unappealing also
implies the difference in social status and indirectly lets the audience
understand the social hierarchy within the film; the protagonist being at the
bottom.
The narrative structure to the film features a linear
storyline which makes it easy for the audience to follow and not get confused
how the story proceeds. The Selfish Giant tells the tragic tale of two boys,
Arbor and Swifty who have the mindset that school is a burden to succession and
disregards it out the way with the motive to earn money as a scrapper,
searching for wires and scrap metal with the aim to earn money to support the
ones they hold dearest. The immaturity of
the protagonist’s behavior, Arbor, leads the film to a direction of insightful
events. The two boys become involved
with ‘the selfish giant’ himself, named Kitten, who is a potentially violent
middle-aged man who exploits the boys in order to earn some additional money. However
this character is also like a double edged sword. The way Kitten’s character is
acted out makes it seem as he’s a fatherly figure to Swifty and Arbor meanwhile
on the other hand he’s a selfish aggressive man who uses kids to exploit them
for money.
There is an underlying contrast between Arbor and Swifty as
they both come from different but similar families with the only similarity
being part of a dysfunctional family and belonging to a lower class social group.
Both of their intentions are to work and financially benefit both of their own
families but --- The rebellious nature of Arbor who has the tendency to make
mistakes without realizing them due to the bad influences around him causes him
to make hasty decisions and drag close ones into them. Swifty is relatable to
this as he comes from a lower class family too however he actually has a father
who is a compulsive drinker and steals all the money he can get his hands on to
buy alcohol satisfying his own selfish needs.
Often in the film the director chooses to include a lot of
establishing shots of animals and wide landscapes before a new scene is
introduced. This gives off the effect to refresh the audience’s emotional state
and is presented normally after a scene has ended. Additionally the shots
provide hints to foreshadow what’s going to occur through the next scene after
the establishing shot. Shots of the huge piles of scrap in the scrapyard with
the children digging into it resembles slaves working for privileged men trying
their best to earn ‘scraps’ of money in order to survive while also is there as
a metaphor of how the big future they have is just going to become one big pile
of scrap.
The performance is amazingly acted out as the protagonist
(Connor Chapman) who is only a child makes the audience grow an attachment to
the character as how he’s always deciding on improper and unsuitable motives
that give us the urge to try and let Arbor know what he’s doing wrong in order
to prevent those mistakes. Kitten’s character is also acted out in a manner of
provoking the audience to cause hatred towards him and despise the man,
especially in the scene where he threatens to mutilate Arbor’s hand on one of
the machines at the scrapyard; this dramatic scene infuriates the audience
which is a superb sign of excellent acting. I felt that the performance of the
scene where Swifty dies from electrocution is executed poorly and could have
been done in a more dramatic way in where the audience would feel grief and
sorrow from the characters death. Furthermore the reaction to Swifty’s death
from Arbors point of view in the film left a bit of distaste personally because
of how he never even showed signs of agony immediately after his death (tears,
pain and suffering). This only occurred after the scene had finished and once
he left the death scene with his horse. However one could argue that this is
because of how Arbor’s personality and behavior is meant to be portrayed due to
him having gone through so much emotional situations within his own family, it
could be a sign that he’s built up confidence.
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