Short Film Analysis: Right Place

Right Place
This film was the winner of the "Best Short Films" at the Young Directors Awards Cannes and received a gold medal for the "Best Foreign Film" at the New York City Short Film Festival. It was directed by Kosai Sekine.

The narrative of the short film basically revolves around a convenience store clerk who is "a little eccentric" or in other words, has an OCD. Because of his obsession, this causes him to lose his job but he eventually finds a replacement job which accepts his eccentric personality. The title "Right Place" can be justified in the sense that it refers to the store clerk's obsession of everything needing to be in the 'right place' and also the idea of him searching for his 'right place' in society, which he eventually discovers in the end.

Analysis

The ways in which this short film adheres to the conventions of a short film is firstly through the way that it revolves around one idea; the eccentric trait of the main character. Mise-en-scene and the actions of this character throughout the whole of this short film continues to build upon the store clerk's personality, as well as the use of the minor side characters who again, are present simply to reinforce this character.

It can also be deduced that this was not really a high-budget production as aside from the ending credits which involved CGI to represent the bones of the skeleton, many of the camera shots and techniques were simple and basic. The use of close-up shots were the most common camera shot used in this film to show the focus and help elaborate on the idea that the store clerk has an obsessive compulsive disorder, which he does admit himself. Another reason why it was a low-budget film is because the film is rather low-key in the sense that it does not make use of well-known actors and we do not even learn the name of this character as it is not really essential.

The editing of the piece was cleverly constructed as when the techno-beat music was introduced, it was only ever used when the character's OCD was taking over. For example, as the young teenagers entered the shop and moved all the products around, the non-diegetic music started to play and the store clerk immediately went over the tidy the shelves out. Editing is also used effectively in time to the beat and pace of the music as jump cuts were used to reduce time and reinforce the main character's strange personality.

As this OCD eventually led to him being fired, the ex-store clerk managed to find the 'right place' as he picks up a 'bonesetter' advertisement on the floor whilst walking home from work; pathetic fallacy also plays a role here as he has just lost his job and the weather is dull and raining. After the credits, we see him twitch his neck, which he does a number of times throughout the film, and this is done to show that he has found the 'right place' which has accepted him and he is comfortable, despite his strangeness.