After watching Conor McCormack's "Christmas with dad" I have started to break down the film and ultimately analyse in depth. Doing this will help me get back into the right mind set of analysing films I watch and hopefully by doing this, it will help me in my assessment.
‘Christmas with dad’ (2008) is a story based documentary directed by Conor McCormack which revolves around 23 year old AJ, a young father of two who despite social representations and initial stereotypes he holds within society, pushes on and contends with fatherhood.
The film can be found on the bbc film network website.
I did enjoy the film, primarily due to how well the story unfolded as the film progressed and we learnt more into AJ on a personal level.. Initial stereotypes from the beginning therefore feel manipulated as you learn more about his life which leads the viewer feeling possible sympathy towards the 23 year old father. On the other hand you cannot make a judgement on his personality/behaviour from a short documentary like this; Conor McCormack has structured the documentary very well in terms of story - however the film seems to highlight the positives of his behaviour as appose to the negatives, thus a sense of bias?
Some aspects of the film definitely stood out and shocked me. The initial reveal on how much the family spends on Christmas was built up quite well – holding negative connotations on the family prior to the reveal such as the interview with AJ in which he describes all the children in the house and explains there is another one on the way despite their living conditions being primarily lower class. When asked about the age of each of the children he answers “Dominic WHICH is eight” which questions the viewer – is he a suitable father? But Conor then shows a contrast and the next clip shows AJ in a positive light – talking with the kids. This contrast in positivity and negativity works well and keeps the film interesting and thus the viewer may change their initial views on AJ.
On the same point later on within the film AJ tells the BBC in an interview outside his home that he holds a terrible eye condition in which he will lose his eye sight in two years. Personally from this point I believe the film takes a mellow turning and ultimately feel sympathy the remainder.
To conclude I do like how the documentary is structured in terms of narrative.. The story unfolds as the documentary progresses giving the viewer more and more information as time goes by, potentially changing initial stereotypes; However as discussed earlier is this truly a reality or is what we perceive from AJ purposely manipulated so that we only see what Conor wants us to see?
Another technique that I found interesting within Christmas with dad included the cinematography; for a documentary there are some shocking shots – featured was one of the youngest child of 1 chewing on an empty pack of cigarettes. Shots such as this tell more of a story that any line of dialogue can and in my opinion has a much more powerful effect on what is seen.
The theme running throughout the documentary focus’ around realism and how the viewers initial view on social class types differ and can change the more you see of that person, Conor displays this well throughout the film by contrasting between shots that show the family in both a positive and negative light.
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