David Pena

10/15/23

English 1301

Dr Sharity Nelson

World of Distortion

People say pictures say a thousand words, but can those words really convey the

feelings they want it to? There are always pieces of art, or design pieces meant to give a

message. Yet one of the most successful instances of it was a poster meant for a movie. Greif,

is a difficult subject, so when a movie revolves around the very process of trying to fight past

grief it may as well pull no punches. Yet how can a poster even portray grief? How can it share

how it feels to have your world fall apart?

A world can’t really fall apart if there is nothing in it. That is why the poster lets us see

how beautiful their world is, the beautiful sky, the rolling plain they stand on. Compared to what

people typically see in the real world, their nature is beautiful. It's bright, colorful, and natural! It

isn’t corrupted by buildings, smog, or any sort of pollution. The only sort of human corruption

that seems present is a quaint little cemetery for the dead. Even then it is not even a corrupting

influence, if it does anything it gives what the viewer sees a feeling of peace. Just a beautiful

view of nature, letting all of those who are around it feel a sense of peace. Perhaps that adds to

the beauty of it, since it gives what isn’t really common these days. Peace in a modern society is

a rare, and beautiful thing. To see it uncorrupted in the natural world, it may as well be akin to

finding gold. It makes its corruption all the harder to watch, seeing what is meant to make

people safe, fall apart into something more twisted.

On the top of the poster there is a shift. While the viewer slowly gazes up at the poster

they will suddenly find themselves faced with an odd change of mood. What was once a cheery,

and happy scene slowly loses its life and color. The bright blues and greens slowly melt into
these murky greens, and grays, and the brightness just fades away. It feels like something is

taking away life from the nature we are so used to seeing. It's disturbing, watching things

dimming, since it feels like it shouldn’t be that way. When someone sees something they know

change for the worse it affects them, because they know what it can be. They know it can be

better, that there is something past that gray, but yet, it can’t be reached anymore. it is cruel in a

way, making someone watch as they lose something they have grown to love. What even brings

this melancholy? What can drain the joy out of someone’s life just like that? Is it some demon

trying to encroach on some people? Some alien force? No, it doesn’t need to be some complex,

or all powerful source, sometimes it can be simple. Sometimes it can just be a person’s

emotions that start the distortion. How many times for example is a crime committed in the heat

of passion for example? A young individual throwing it all away since it feels as if all there is to

their world is the overwhelming feeling. Yet how could one even draw that conclusion? After all

there are more things than grief that can cause a world to distort.

The poster hasn’t been fully described yet. Within the cemetery on the beautiful fields

below the distortion image there is a group of people, and a casket. There are so many details

in the poster that help build its world, yet none provide the same amount of context as the

people within the cemetery. What could have been a story about perhaps an eldritch horror, or

some sort of alien influence trying to corrupt the world is so much smaller. It is about a small

family, who have to learn how to deal with their grief. It isn’t a story about the world as the whole

getting corrupted, but about the family’s world. How the joy, and brightness is leaving them just

like their family members did. Perhaps it adds to the dread the poster incites. Instead of the

world banding together to face some global threat it is just a small family. They are the ones who

have to pick up the pieces, and they are alone. Sure grief counseling is a thing, but when a

family loses someone it is ultimately something that stays in the family. And while typically a

family can recover the poster suggests otherwise. The darkness is encroaching on them, and

either they survive, or it consumes everything.

 Pictures are worth a thousand words, and just like words they can incite feelings. The

poster, it doesn’t hide what its’ for, doesn’t try to pretend the movie is for everyone. Yet it

conveyed as much of a message as any movie could. With just its setting, distortion, and people

it shows just how powerful something like grief can be, how easily it can just take over.