Pudding Bowl - Vanessa Caswill

This film starts on a black screen and music we would expect to hear sometime around the 40's - maybe the 70's. the images of women from a magazine including marilyn monroe appear on screen, which instantly places this piece in the 50's - 60's. a young chubby girl is then seen cutting out the images, the shots remain close up to her face. this choice of shots is used to create the feeling of dreams and possibly isolation, the young girl is lost inside the dream world of the magazine images. when her brother plays a nasty prank on her (pouring glue into her hair) the girls mother gives her a pudding bowl hair cut, hence the name. the hair cut scene is cut fast while the mum continuously shouts at her about her hair. at this point the music has changed to sound like out tune violins, which sounds something similar to Horror film music. this emphasises how much the girls hair means to her and how devastating the hair cut is. After the hair cut scene she is seen from a high angle shot sitting on the stool, her cut hair on the floor forming a perfect circle around her. this is a metaphor, the hair creating the shape of the world or never ending circle shows that Her hair was her life and her world and it has just been cut away. the heavy breathing that can be heard is presumed to be coming from the girl emphasises her anger at this point. this fact is also made clear by a close up shot that follows of the girl giving the camera what can only be described as a death stare. the girl leaves the room to find a mirror, once she see's her reflection sad sorrowful music can be heard as we realise how devastated she really is. the scene becomes happy however when she lays out a magazine clip and begins to play with make up, we as the audience realise at this point that she has subconsciously made a decision to let life get her down and to carry on regardless of her hair. she then proceeds outside to steal her brothers bike, as they chase her the scene changes and becomes almost dream like in it's exposure and the music that can be heard. we see a woman in the same spotted dress riding  similar bike being chased by men seeking her affections, we assume at this point that this is Ivy's dream for herself or her imagination that instead of being chased by her brother and his friends she is being courted. the scene changes again as she is brought back to reality for the cliched ride off into the sunset ending, leaving her brother and his friends behind.
although i understand the images used. i didn't overly enjoy this piece, for me it was too much in the past and the images and metaphors were a little too obvious.