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Change In The Dark Horse

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In the film The Dark Horse, directed by James Napier Robertson we are able to see that in order for a film like this to be successful the characters must undergo meaningful change. This is clearly seen through the main character Genesis Potini as the audience watches him go through three major changes. The first one is Genesis’ attitude towards life when he is happy and oblivious which changes when he is brought back to reality. The second is when we see Gen stop focusing his life on his mental illness and instead focused on becoming a good role model for a group of young children. The last big change that we see from Gen is when he pushes away his life of pills and mental institutions to become a father to his nephew Mana. For a film to be …show more content…

His bipolar is starting to get very bad again and he is struggling with a lot of things. Throughout the film we see Gen struggling to prove to people that he is a good role model and has the ability to help these kids. When Gen first tries to prove his worthiness he ends up making bad decisions. A key scene for this is when Gen approaches one of the kids mums who had stopped her son going to the chess club. At the time Gen was sleeping at the monument in order to be able to buy the kids chess sets. This leads to conflict between the two which sets off one of Gens bipolar episodes. We see lots of close ups on Gen as it makes the scene look more intense and the fast paced dialogue add to that. Gen begins flipping out and is seen mumbling to himself and scratching his head both of which are common signs of one of his episode happening. He begins to pull out a chess set and yells to everyone “to come and play.” In the background of the shot we see a large man approach and he punches Gen in the face. As soon as this happens the screen goes black and it makes the audience feel as though they have also been hit. It puts us in Gen’s shoes and makes us see things a little more through his eyes. We are already connected to Gen and it causes an emotional reaction to see him fail and have to deal with this level of abuse. This shows how Gen is unable to handle certain situations because his bipolar takes over. The director has chosen to engage the audience this way to allow us to observe the darker sides of humanity that live inside Gens brain. He is clearly in a negative place in his life. He gives people a large amount of reasons as to why he could be a bad role model when he acts out like this. He acts out because he does not know how to deal with his bipolar episode in a stressful situation. He has lost all sense of stability that he has been trying so hard to gain. As the film moves on

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