Dissolve Technique

Although this short clip has nothing to do with The Road Home, I thought it provided good examples of dissolves. With dissolve, the original shot fades out as the new shot fades in. This clip shows dissolve with the dog fading out and the ducks fading in. I chose to focus on dissolves because I think The Road Home had numerous dissolve shots throughout the film.

The Road Home: Symbolism

In The Road Home, the bowl was a significant symbol. Di used this bowl to try to get Changyu's attention; she cooked meals and tried to get him to eat them from this specific bowl. There was a scene in the film that involved Di running after Changyu to give him the dumplings before he left for the city. While running, she dropped the bowl and it broke. Di was devastated. This particular scene is particularly symbolic because the bowl broke while Changyu was forced to leave. In some way, this described their relationship because we didn't know if Changyu and Di would end up together. A happy outcome of this symbol is that Di's mother was kind enough to get the bowl fixed because she knew how much this bowl meant to her.


Another important symbol was the barrette that Changyu gave to Di before he was forced to leave to the city. He gave her the barrette to match her red jacket; the barrette also had shades of red in it. The color red symbolizes good luck or happiness. This gift made Di happy; it would remind her of Changyu while he was gone in the city.

High Angle Technique

This camera shot uses a high angle technique. The use of this technique is interesting because you are able to see everything that is going on around the character. In this particular shot, it makes this scene of the movie a little more thrilling.

The 400 Blows: Camera Movement

The film, The 400 Blows, had a lot of different visual styles. The specific visual style that I focused on was camera movement. The opening scene used panning and tracking camera movements. The film would zoom in on certain things when the children were in school, as well as when Antoine was reading a book. Tilting was another form of camera movement that was shown in the film. For example, tilting was used when the boys were walking down an alley way and then the camera tilted up to the tops of the buildings. Panning was used quite often throughout the film.