A Film Analysis of The Shallows, a Thriller Film by Jaume Collet-serra

“The Shallows” is a thriller film that was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. The film was first released on June 21st, 2016. The film is a thriller and reflects true hardships that one may encounter in life. Nancy, the main character, is trapped 200 yards away from the shore and hopeless since she is certain that the whale is going to kill her or hunger would certainly make her weak and finally die. This shows timeless human values; one can encounter such a scenario now or in the future (Debruge, 2016). Moreover, the film is classic since it has memorable scenes. The main character is going through a difficult time from losing her surfboard, injuring her leg and getting trapped in a rock after the whale discovered her presence in water. The film also is considered classic since the main character showed great performance when she swam despite her leg injury and managed to escape the whale. The technical features of this film include the filming of actions underwater and high-speed filming in the presence of water waves (Hoffman, 2017).

In the film, the main character is Nancy. After her mother died of cancer, she traveled to a beach in Mexico. She had just dropped out of medical school. The beach she visited is where her mother had once visited when she was pregnant with Nancy. On arriving at the beach, she met three men who surfed with her. While taking a break, she video chats with her sister and dad. While surfing for the last time, she spots a floating carcass of a whale. She rides towards it, and that is where a shark bumped her off the surfboard and bite her leg. She took refuge on the carcass, and the shark followed her. Finally, she settled in a rock and slept there overnight with a wounded seagull. The following day, her friends, who were surfing with her the previous day, came and before she could warn them, they were killed by the shark. She later swam from the rock to a buoy where she got a flare gun. She wanted to alert a faraway cargo, but nobody could see her signal. Later, the shark attacked the buoy, and she is pulled down by the chains of the buoy to the floor of the ocean. While pursuing her, the shark impales itself on the rear of the buoy’s anchor and died. She was later found by a boy, Carlos, floating close to the shore and rescued. The film then jumps to the present time when Nancy is back at the beach with her sister and father (Metacritic.com, 2017). The camera techniques used in shooting this film is the use of aerial cameras. The sounds also were live as one can hear the sound of water waves and the characters gasping for breath while surfing.

The film is a good type of art which is well presented. The points of value of this film lie within its themes. One theme is resilience; Nancy was resilient even though she was going through a tough time trapped in water. Thus from the film, we learn to be persistent. This film resembles literature work since it has lively performance that resembles real occurrence without much exaggeration. The film received positive responses with a higher percentage of people liking the film. Watching this film, I had a Dionysian aesthetic experience. I would recommend this film to other people since it a type of film that provokes thinking and feelings as the story of Nancy Unfolds while trapped in water (IMDb.com, 2017).