Pudding Bowl

Pudding Bowl is gorgeous little story about a little girl and her hair. The character of Ivy the little girl was a really interesting protagonist even though she only spoke about three words. Her Character was well established. The opening shots of her cutting and pasting pictures of glamorous Hollywood stars into a scrap book. Her environment is easily recognisable a typical British 1950s home. Therefore the first conclusions we can draw about her character is that she has a fascination for the far off, exotic glamour of movie land. What it can also mean is that she is looking to escape from the dreariness of her surroundings. The beige hue of the set helps to reinforce this point. The colours here are very drab, lending themselves t let the viewer draw similar conclusions about Ivy’s daily life. That it is dull, surrounded by the grey mizzle that seemed to permeate 1950s England. So we can draw the conclusion from this that she sees the glamour of Hollywood as an escapism from the rather monotone reality of her daily life as she sees it.

The character of her brother is typical mischievous school boy. And the Mother a stereotypical Buxom 50s house wife. There close up of the meat grinder, reinforces this idea of the dull tedium, the daily grind, the relentless turning of the cogs, symbolises the repetitive nature of the life portrayed in the film. The one thing for the character f Ivy is her hair, decked out in a pretty red bow she is obviously very proud of it. Therefore when her brother tips glue over it and her mother cuts it all off into an awful bowl cut she is obviously devastated. This is reinforced by the fact that age actually speaks on this art of the film, the only words that she utters through the whole film. Therefore it is obvious how much it moves her, therefore how much her hair means to her.

When she sees what has happened t her hair and puts the stocking on her head and applies the red lipstick, it is another nod to the idea of escapism. Which it is pretty clear by now is the film’s main theme. This is made explicit when after Ivy rides down the road on a bike chases by her brother and his friends she Begins to day cream about being older, an attractive young woman with long black hair being chased by a bunch of besotted boys. What this does is cement the idea of escapism as she has obviously gone into a fantast. This is made clear by the soft focus which is widely accepted as showing it to be a dream sequence. The glowing slightly unearthly effect it gives is invocative of a dream.

Another point to make in the way Ivy seems to stick out is her red dress that for some part of the film is hidden by a beige cardigan. So with the ideas of a beige and colour that have already been established the idea of Ivy throwing off this cardigan symbolises that she is throwing off the drudgery of her life and going into her fantast world which she does.

I really enjoyed this film, like Sign Language it is light hearted and leave the audience with a nice feeling.

Once again I would say what we would take from it as a group would be the idea of having a light hearted piece. One that engages the audience through a heart warming  story rather that a hard hitting one. 

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