Overall one of the most prominent themes in the film Inja (Dog) is the idea of karma, and how it can follow someone silently through many years before deciding to strike.
The main character Thembile, an African servant boy, is introduced taking rope from a flagpole to make a collar for his new pooch. He knows this is wrong, but does so anyway for his new friend. This action shows his selflessness as a character, but also his naivety. As a child, he does not realize that having a dog in his present situation is detrimental for not only himself, but especially the dog. After the time lapse, the boy still exemplifies selflessness, but is now more experienced. His selflessness is shown once again while trying to save his master who had a heart attack, even after all the horrid things he did to him.
The master Johannes’ character, interestingly enough, is completely juxtaposed from Thembile. While the boy shows great selflessness and kindness through his actions, Johannes is cold and self centered. He sees the dogs attachment to the boy, so he decides to pin his own abuse of the dog on to Thembile in order to keep the dog all for himself. Similarly, this trait is shown again when he’d rather have the dog killed than face the realty of his demise.
The setting of this short film takes place in a transitioning South Africa, and is split into two distinct sections. These two sections are separated by the passing of time, which is exemplified by the changing of the flag from a British province to South Africa’s independent flag. It is interesting to note the differences between the two time settings, most notably in how Thembile is treated by Johannes. Even if one is not familiar with the history of apartheid, its clear to see that between the two time periods, the relationship between the two men changes from a master-slave dynamic, to a more boss-worker one. However, besides time, not much in the setting changes. Its still the dusty South African farm Thembile grew up on. This choice of setting development, or lack there of, signifies that while time has past and laws have changed, the people more or less have not. Thembile is still treated and seen as lower than Johannes because of his race.
Inja made great use of a couple wide shots in the beginning to establish setting as well as in transition scenes to keep things interesting. It also made use of a lot of close up shots, which were quintessential in viewing the characters expressions and emotions throughout the story.
The pace of the move was fairly quick, as it jumped from different angles fairly quickly and never really stayed on one angle for an extended period of time. Two effective cuts in the movie occurred when it cut to older Thembile raising the new flag showing time progression, and at the very end when it cuts to black during the most stressful scene in the movie leaving a sense of confusion as to what Thembile was going to do in such an intense situation.
The scene that had the best visual and sonic elements to me was the scene where Johannes instructed Thembile to put the dog into the bag and proceeded to abuse the animal. While its certainly the hardest scene to watch, it captured intense raw emotion from each of the characters visually, as well as the sounds of the dog were extremely realistic which was honestly very hard to watch.
Indiana Jones has character traits very similar to Inja in the way of motive. While Jones is extremely cocky and rather sexist, his motives behind treasure hunting are completely without personal gain. He just wants artifacts to be able to be studied in a museum. His adversaries on the other hand, see these treasure hunts as personal gain, showing their selfishness.
The setting of the Indiana Jones intro is similar to Inja in climate as they are both very warm climates as they are both relatively close to the equator. However they are different in the fact that this region of Peru is known for its distinct jungles while South Africa is more of a grassland. The time also differs as Indiana Jones takes place late 30s early 40s throughout the trilogy.
Indiana Jones camera angles were very deliberate and effective, especially the reveal of the character himself. The camera pans up to reveal the main character backlit by natural sunlight and film score starting to swell as we are introduced to Indiana Jones himself in a medium shot from a slightly lower angle looking up at him exemplifying his hero status.
The pacing of this intro was slow and intense right until Jones replaced the idol with the sand bag and then the pace really picked up. Two effective cuts occurred when the guide died and was reminiscent of an earlier scene and as Jones pulled his whip from the closing door.
The scene with the best visual and sonic elements as I already stated, was the introduction of the character Jones himself, with the intense score starting to swell, beautiful back lighting and front illumination and the acting of Harrison Ford, the immense concentration of the character created a truly beautiful moment.
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