Inspirations - themes and narrative

Our initial idea came from a visual perspective - we knew what we wanted the film to look like, with a few ideas about theme. However we haven't really come up with a direct narrative for the idea of individual struggle. Some ideas we thought about in our tutorials were more personally directed ones from the character. However I have found a few examples of films that follow themes of oppression. 

Black Mirror - Fifteen Million Merits

The second episode of Black Mirror (directed by Charlie Brooker) was something that inspired me greatly due to its message. The whole point of the episode is to show how the media industry controls our lives, and that if you're not famous or talented then you are forced to work in boring routine jobs to earn money just to live in order to go to work again: it is an endless cycle in which we aren't truly free. This is exactly the message I want to do this through more subtle, darker means. Also I want the idea of restraint to be more objective, and so the media is just one strand of what controls our lives everyday. The actual episode isn't currently available online but there is a link to a trailer for the whole series.

Metropolis

Metropolis is a German expressionist film directed by Fritz Lang which inspired me mostly because of the theme. the story is about capitalism and the division between classes. it is a silent film yet still shows how the working class are oppressed, and this is what I want to achieve in my film on a more objective level. However, after watching this, I realised that this could be one of the themes interpreted from my own film where this sort of division in society is a Marxist view on unfair control over society.

Carrie

Carrie (directed by Brian De Palma) is also a film that inspired me (particularly the original), as it demonstrates another problem of individual struggle and also oppression. In this case it is religion and also parental control that keeps Carrie behaving the way she does, which is another idea for what my film idea could be interpreted as a metaphor for -  it is sometimes the things more personal and closer to home that take our total freedom away from us.