The Tracey Fragments (2007)

The Tracey Fragments, a film about a 15-year-old troubled girl in search of her lost younger brother, is all about editing.  The entire movie relies heavily on non-linear story telling and displaying the visual content in a fragmented way that's almost a throwback to the comic book layout.  Director, Bruce McDonald, shoots a single scene multiple ways and displays it in the same frame.  This technique effectively displays the chaos, confusion, and vulnerability of the main character and how she sees the world.

Here we see, different close ups, extreme close ups, as well as different camera angles.  It seems as though the viewer is merely seeing different shots of the same thing, but each panel is focusing on a different aspect of the subject-- the necklace (a symbol of sibling love), her face admiring the necklace, her position to the mirror and how she smiles at her image rather than hate what she sees.  The warm colors and soft lighting indicate that this is a memory that Tracey charishes.

Here, the viewer is given a visual "biography" of Tracey's life without narration or dialogue pertaining to the images in a matter of a seconds.  In this way, the director gives you a sense of her early childhood quickly and without being too direct, leaving some things up to the interpretation of the viewer.  The drab colors, low lighting and dark backgrounds show that her childhood wasn't a particularly cheerful one.  The creepy, sad clown framed in the center is a dead give away.

In this scene, the director takes the classic, Eyeline Match method and turns it into something completely different, but it somehow keeps the same functionality that the traditional method would give.  Both of the characters are looking towards the camera, but the different panels give the impression that they are actually looking at each other.  Their faces aren't directly facing the camera but their eyes are given much attention to show that the other obviously knows that they are being watched, but don't want to admit that they are looking right back.

All of Tracey's appointments with her odd transvestite therapist are done in front of a bright white background in a bare space.  Although her meetings with this therapist are generally perceived as real events confirmed by her parents who send her there, this is where the viewer is indicated that reality and fantasy are increasingly blurring in Tracey's mind.  The fragments are a reflection of her life and mindstate, but fantasies like the ones she constantly has with school-mate, Billy Zero, show her imagination running wild and her desire for a different life.

Speaking of "running wild," in several instances throughout the film, animals are used to create metaphor, such as crows, but often there are references to horses.  In the clip above, Tracey runs away from home and while the song entitled "Horses" is playing, and image of a horse is spliced into the scene, replacing her as the running subject.  The shakey handheld camera used to film her running, in conjunction with the horse splicing, emphasizes her exasperation with her home life and her willingness to get away from it and find her brother.  The inside of her home is lit with soft amber lighting, but it serves as a deception of what family life is supposed to be.

In the end, it is odd to see the movie in a single frame.  It seems as though her mind is finally calm and accepting of what has happened to her and the severe emotional/mental problems that she has.  She repeats the line, "No one can stop me.  No one can make me stand still" as she walks, hugging the shower curtain that she has held on to in place of her clothes.