Portals: Narrative Analysis

 PORTALS

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Portal: No Escape is a short fan film about the Portal video game series directed by Dan Trachtenberg. The film presents a story of a woman who wakes up in a room that seems like a prison perplexed, then we are shown montages of her growing stronger and stronger, to the point where she attempts to escape through the use of a portal. Her attempting escape gets the audience hopeful, with a sense of reassurance that she would accomplish it. However, we are presented with a twist at the end, where we discover that she is still being kept captive, under control, and that it all ended up being an illusion through a simulation. 

Within the short film, the narrative subverts from typical conventions within the action genre. This is due to the fact that the woman portrays herself as a dominant character due to her pure strength and how she shows superiority over the guards. Consequently, the location shown in the majority of the film is in a room that resembles a prison cell. The room is compact, eerie, dull, and isolated. The room is very plain lacking in appliances except for a bed and a toilet.  No bright colours were shown until the portal device was revealed. Further, The film used low key lighting during the prison cell scenes which makes the protagonist seem sinister and mysterious. The contrast between the dim and bright lighting when the woman escapes emphasized a sense of character freedom, which aids in making the audience understand what is happening. The overall color scheme of the film has dark monochromatic colours, which was effective as it created a contrast with the look of the gun and the portal, portraying the main topic of the film and the genre. The clothing of the protagonist tells us that she may be a medical patient of some sort, as she wakes up wearing a hospital-like gown. This encapsulates how she may have been experimented on inferred by the way she is in prison by possible antagonists. 

In spite of the outlook of the setting, there was an eyeline match during the cinematography in which allowed the audience to see what the character was seeing. This makes the audience feel involved and engaged with the film as if you're in the character's shoes. Though tension is created in the film as when she is looking at the wall the audience is beginning to create enigma codes such as 'what is she looking at?' or 'is there something behind that wall?'. Additionally, the film presented other useful shots, for example during the scene where the woman is being held captive in a prison cell, high angle camera shots from the viewpoint of a CCTV camera were used to connote how inferior and powerless she is. Even though low angle shots were also used, while she was exercising, to illustrate her growth of strength and power later projected in the film leading to her escape.