Everything Is Artifice: A Tale Of Two Sisters
In the chapter “Under the Sink” in the Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-Woon 2003) we see a lot of techniques to create a very intense horror scene. It opens with a wide shot of the interior of the house, two characters are symmetrically positioned in the frame adhering to the rule of thirds. Our eyes are drawn to the woman in the red top, red symbolises; love, passion, anger, danger and blood.
The house looks western style not Korean, the place both characters originate from. Then, the Character in grey leaves the shot but the shot carries on, this is to show he’s not coming back into the shot. Next it cuts to a low angle shot but not quite a close up, in which the woman’s hair is covering her eyes, making her seem distant and mysterious. She also has red lipstick on which symbolises more of the sex theme.
Off camera, we hear the diegetic sound of something squeaking to the left of her, so then we see her turn her body slowly towards that sound. Then, on the third shot we cut to an over the shoulder shot, whilst the camera is doing a steady cam push in (towards the woman). This shows us where to look and focus on- the cupboard door which is being focused on by the camera and is in the centre of the frame. We then see the cupboard slightly open and hear a diegetic sound of this happening but it swiftly cuts to a reaction shot- almost a close up of her face where we can see she is visually frightened and is rapidly breathing.
The camera starts tracking backwards, tracking her movement backwards towards the sink before cutting to an establishing shot of the cupboard, the place the noise has originally came from. Instead of cutting back to here, the girl enters the frame, the film producers do this to make it more realistic as in real life there are no cuts so it feels more real and immersive. After this, there is an exaggerated creak, the cupboard is opened enough to see inside and it’s empty. This then opens up a good place for A close up reaction shot of her relief to be shown as she now knows there’s nothing in the cupboard. There is then another cut to a POV shot of the empty floor, this is important as without it the next part of the film wont work. It’s cuts back to another reaction shot, tracking there movement again as she looks under the cupboard. Then into a new type of shot we haven’t seen in the film yet, a low angle shot from underneath the cupboard. In this shot, her face covers the frame before she lifts her head up again to reveal the ghost behind her.
They do this to make us (the viewers), think this is the scary part of the scene and nothing else scary will commence . Then we hear a diegetic sound of whimpering in the background to add more suspense, and as this is happening the camera is doing a close up, reaction shot that keeps zooming in on her face. Then she starts to turn her head, there is a non-diegetic sound to build an unsettling, tension packed feeling. It quickly cuts to a POV shot of the dining room and the non-diegetic sound stops. The next shot shows under the cupboard, showing us nothing is there, this relieves us and makes us feel less worried. We then also see this feeling shown on the film as it cuts back to a reaction shot of relief then a POV shot, almost identical to the one before showing that there is a hair clip where there wasn’t before. As she goes to pick it up the camera slowly tracks down the arm, whilst zooming in on the hand making it a close up at which point she grabs the hair clip and nothing happens. This gives us a sign of relief until then she lifts it up and A scabby hand grabs her. It really quickly cuts to a reaction shot of her screaming which then cuts to a rapid series of 5 shots of her recoiling away which shows her wide eyed and in fear. As she does this she turns round, the camera goes backwards and it shows her eye to eye with the ghost.
