The first character introduced in Inja is Thembile, a young boy. We see him first as he is playing with a puppy. This helps us to see Thembile as a sympathetic character and a caring person. This characterization is then cemented as we then see him risk getting in trouble by cutting some rope to make a collar for the dog. As time goes on and we see him continue to care for both the dog and the man who owns the farm on which he works, despite later being treated badly by both.
The other main character in Inja that we see is Johannes. He is quickly characterized as the de-facto “bad guy.” He not only is clearly a racist and taking advantage of the African people, he points a gun at a young boy and kicks a puppy in a sack repeatedly as it cries. And yet, that is not all he seems to be. As older Thembile is working for him, we see Johannes seem to care for the younger man in some way, such as when we see him help Thembile with the work Thembile has to do in the fields.
By contrast, in the opening to the Disney classic Bambi, we are first introduced to a young deer and his mom as they begin to snack on some tasty grass, poking up through the winter snow as the first sign of spring. We are shown a very stereotypical character in the form of Bambi’s mother, as all we see of her in the short beginning to the movie is that she cares for her child. Bambi, meanwhile, is shown to be a curious and fun-loving child by the way we are shown him dancing around the grass and getting very excited. We are also shown that he cares for his mother very deeply, as after she has been killed we see him cry and mourn for her.
The setting of Inja is shown quite simply by wide shots of the African landscape. It shown to a be a beautiful and wild space. It’s an effect that lends the movie to have a grand sense of space. There is also an impact to the story that is implied but not shown—in the very beginning of the movie, we see the young boy Thembile raise a flag—a flag that shows that he is in a state under Apartheid. And yet, when he is older, we see him raising the flag of South Africa. Through this, we know something about the world that the movie doesn’t need to show, a vague point about racism and the way of the world that is only ever hinted at, but never explicitly stated.
The setting of Bambi is similarly shown. We are treated to wide, panning shots of the land that show that it is beautiful and relatively untouched. Similarly to Inja we are also treated to something happening off-screen that has major implications for our hero. For Thembile, it was the end of Apartheid. For Bambi, it is the shooting of his mother. It, like the end of Apartheid, is a sudden event that the audience doesn’t see, but is representative of the way the world works, whether or not our hero wants it to happen. It is also, in both cases, an event that seems to be a point for our hero to grow up.
In Inja, we frequently see wide angle shots and close up shots. Each has their important function. In this film, the wide angle shots are good for setting up scale and for creating a sense of scale. Meanwhile the close up shots are very good for creating drama and for showing rising tension in the characters.
Bambi uses similar effect within its camera angles. Long, wide angle panning shots are used to establish the setting and the scale of the world, whereas close shots are used to call attention to our characters emotions and create tension.
One of the most significant cuts in Inja is when Johannes has had his heart attack and we skip between close up shots between the dog, who is barking at Thembile and Thembile himself, who is struggling to get past the dog. It is a series of jump cuts that go between two characters and creates a sense of rising tension.
In Bambi, we get a long scene in which Bambi appears to be running from a hunter. During this scene, we get a series of cuts in which each scenes fades directly into the next. Through this series of cuts, we get a sense that Bambi is running for a very long time, and he continues to run for as long as he can. This cut allows the audience to get a sense of the passing of time, and of Bambi’s doggedness, which is shown through his endless running.
In both Inja and Bambi, there are a lot of shots which specifically leave the visuals that would cause audience heartbreak off screen, in particular the scenes of the animal abuse and the shooting of Bambi’s mother. In Inja, this is also to make the scene easier to film, but it still has the same effect as in Bambi: it leaves the audience imagining what happened and what it may have looked like, which is likely to be worse than what the filmmakers could create on screen. In addition, the music in both films is essential in creating a sense of tension and drama, as the rising score is used to create drama in the audience.
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