'Identity' Directed by Babak Anvari 2012 Analysis By Connor Hilton

'Identity' Directed by Babak Anvari 2012Research By Connor Hilton

About The Film:  

 This short film is about a young teen girl in American high school. Everyone in the school is wearing masks, nobody's face can be seen. The girl gets distressed and uncomfortable because the mask is her fake identity and she wants to show her true identity. 

From the short films YouTube video description: ""Identity" is a project made for the youth in schools.
Don't let society define your Identity, or to tell you who you have to be.
The truth is already inside of you. Don't lose who you are."

Media Concepts: 

• Representation
• Audience
• Media Language

Analysis: 

Title Screen

• We start with black screen, we hear some narration from a female voice "Today I found the truth".
• It then cuts to a close up of a female character staring at herself in the mirror.
• The female character then raises a mask. Which hides her face, giving her a 'new identity'. This indicates that the film is trying to portray the message that teenagers hide their true identity and only show a fake identity to others.
• She walks backwards out of the room, into a hallway and into a cafeteria. This indicates that what we just saw was a flashback and are now seeing the present time.  
• Other students are also wearing the masks, however, they are split into groups. Nobody appears to have the same mask as the female character though which indicates that she doesn't 'fit in'.

CU without mask

CU with the mask on

• Next we see the female character inside a classroom with her classmates via an over the shoulder shot, all of them are wearing masks.
• We hear the teacher is telling a story of a group of people who lived inside of a cave and had never seen the outside, and how one day, one of the people saw the outside and became the enlightened one and had to show the others. This foreshadows the end message to the short film.

  

  OTS shot of girl sitting in class

• The female character has left the class and is wandering down the halls.
• We see a close up of a poster that reads "THIS is what beautiful looks like. 

  

  CU of Poster

• The girl in the poster is wearing a pure yellow mask with no detail, it looks generic and boring, this could relate to the real life glamour images where the models faces all look very similar because of the makeup hiding their 'identity'.
• It also represents how the media influences teenagers to look a certain way in order to be beautiful.
• We then cut to a mid shot of a group of female characters wearing the same yellow mask as the girl on the poster. 
• This shows that these girls have been influenced by the media and have made themselves look 'beautiful'. 

Mid-Shot of the group of girls

• A few seconds later we see a different female character walk up to a group of friends while taking off one mask which reveals the mask underneath. This shows that people have different identities for different friend groups and have to act as someone else when with some people. It could also show that she is her more real 'identity' when with that group of friends and the other mask was an identity that she showed in class. 

Mid Shot of girl taking off mask

• Next, we see the main female character sitting in the original place in the cafeteria via a close up of her at the table.
• We hear a non-diegetic sound that reminds us of what happened at the start of the short film.
• The female character stands up and rushes to the bathroom, tripping when she gets through the door to the bathroom. 
• After a cut to black we get an over the shoulder shot of the girl standing up and looking into the mirror.
• Her mask appears to have cracked and is missing some of it's 'face'. 
• The female character attempts to leave the bathroom, but stops at the door and then walks back to the mirror. 
• We hear a slow, happy & triumphant non-diegetic soundtrack as the female character removes the mask from her face. 
• The female character stares into the mirror and smiles, she has realized her true identity. 
• We then get more narration similar to the start of the film "Today the truth found me".
• The female character leaves the bathroom, while dropping the mask, and walks outside building facing her peers who stare at her in surprise. 

LS of girl walking outside

Conclusion: 

Identity is aimed at a teenage audience giving the key message to not be fake with each other and to be your true self. It also represents teenagers as generic and people who can be categorized into groups. It does this by giving people who are friends similar masks which indicates that they are all the same person. Additionally, the film highlights the way that media tells teenagers to act and look and how some teenagers are influenced heavily by this and hide their true identity. Lastly, I think that the main message of the film is to tell teenagers to be themselves and that it doesn't matter if you fit in with others because everyone should be unique.

The Short Film (Identity):