Cold mountain analysis

Cold Mountain

The scene began with a Extreme long Aerial shot - this was used to establish setting and shown us that this man had traveled far, which made us want to know where he was going.

The shot tilts to show us this man's footprints, and doesn't reveal his face until the end of the shot due to the silhouette - which makes him shady and mysterious. 

We can tell that he's been traveling in the cold for a while due to his exhaustion and the frost in his beard, this makes us want to know what is so important to risk the cold environment, and it's not obvious where he's come from and where he's going.

In the parallel cut edit, it shows us that he's separated from his wife, which makes me feel sympathetic toward him - and that they long for each other because of the voice over which is reading the letter to us. This is also shown in the way that the voice over starts just before the cut, and he looks up, as if he's listening to her voice.
The low key lighting in this shot is to show her loneliness and distress.

In the next cut we see a dead deer, which has been frozen to death which shows how dangerous the environment is and are foreshadowing for the deaths that are about to happen. 

This is mainly Low key lighting, made of natural light from the fire and little fill light - this is to give the contrast of the background, which has been illuminated blue to show the coldness. The closeness of the warmth and cold shows that in this setting you're never far away from danger.
Two new characters join the shot quite abruptly due to the darkness of the environment, and they are wearing all black clothing which is commonly known as evil which signify's that they are not to be trusted. They also arrive on the shot on horses, which shows their  dominance, power and control over these other characters. 

The guy above is seen unlit unlike the other characters, and the fact that he's hiding behind a rock could show that he's cautious and untrusting of the two men that arrived out of nowhere - we see most of the shots of the characters around the fire from his point of view. The close up shot allows us to see the fear and his emotions of the other characters.

I feel like the shot where the two characters get shot is the strongest shot, as it affects you emotionally. I felt shocked when the two characters were shot - this could be due to one of the characters (Right) acting childlike and oblivious to what was going on around him, we could see this as he was smiling still when they made him cover his face. We feel empathy for this character, as well as the other character (left) as he act's like his father, and looks after him. The childlike manner of the Right hand guy makes us think of him much younger than he actually is.

After a jump cut, the next shot is of two women who are talking about the war - the woman above is mostly seen from the camera behind objects (Above). This could show her distance from the other character and her distress. The change of time from night to day could show that the evil's past, and that they're safe for a while.