SAC sample

‘I suppose everyone has to witness something ghastly one day.’ Look Both Ways argues that it is impossible to prevent personal suffering. Discuss.

Look Both Ways is a film that forces the viewer to consider circumstances of personal suffering that everyone, at some stage in their lives, will have to experience in one way or another. Through a multi-strand narrative Watt explores the lives of Meryl, Nick, Andy, Anna, Phil, Julia, Rob and the train driver who appear to be ordinary folk going through the motions of their ordinary, mundane existence. As the film delves into the experiences each character is facing in their lives it challenges the perception that the lives of most people are simply ordinary. As Meryl points out, ‘everyone has to witness something ghastly one day’. In this it is obvious Watt is making a point that it is impossible to prevent personal suffering. However, it would be remiss for a viewer to consider Look Both Ways from a purely negative perspective. The title Look Both Ways works as a metaphorical warning that the implied reader understands as a precaution about how they need to consider this text. By taking into account the subtly expressed layers of meaning Watt has intricately woven into this narrative they realise her overall message is about the strength and beauty of the human spirit in its ability to deal with adversity.

The spectre of death is immediately prevalent in Look Both Ways as the mise-en-scene created by a gloomy house filled with flowers asserts a loss has recently taken place. Our own and the death of our loved ones is an inevitable event that people have to suffer. It can come quickly and unexpectedly as in the case of Meryl’s father, Rob, and those whom the television news informs have been involved in a train crash at Arnow Hill. It can also be a drawn out process as demonstrated in the flashbacks Nick has of his father’s death from cancer. It is impossible to not have to deal with mortality in life, and the unknown aspect of the afterlife and how one shall die causes fear and anxiety. Joan comments to Nick, ‘Everyone has to find a way to face their own death … and life.’ For Nick, these words of wisdom cause him to reassess the way he is approaching his cancer diagnosis. In the early stages of the film photomontages of cancer cells multiplying allowed the viewer to see that Nick was being consumed by his thoughts of cancer. Ghastly images appear to assault him as he walks down the street and plays cricket. He comments to Meryl how, ‘Everywhere I look I see Death’. As he fights this ‘war’ his focus turns towards the things that will equal the ‘sum of his life.’