It starts off with a slow dolly shot with the sound of rain able to be heard because the mother of the protagonist’s, Daniel, girlfriend asked him to remember his troubled past and what was it like.
Then it cuts to a flashback where you see a young kid from behind watching TV. You don’t get to see his face, which the audience could make a connotation to the movie Poltergeist where you also get to see a young child from behind in front of a TV, which is a horror movie as well. The shot seems sort of foggy on the sides and focusing on the kid emphasizing that it is a memory from the protagonist.
Later, there is a shot where it focuses entirely on the mug where the mother is rotating tea with a spoon. It emphasizes the power that she is holding over him with just the sound of a spoon colliding gently with the ceramic mug. The sound is concurring all throughout the scene since it is the strategy she is using it to hypnotize and manipulate Daniel thoughts onto remember the tragic loss of his mother. Further, it makes the audience aware of the fact that in just a flick of a second, the woman can hold the upper hand over Daniel. The close-up shot highlights the importance of the mug.
Daniel is slowly becoming distraught because of the memory of his mother’s passing flooding in. He is showing incredibly deep emotions of distress, his eyes are watery and red signifying he is about to cry, he is unable to process words correctly. As the camera starts to slowly close in his face, he starts to led out some tears while she is asking him about how his mother was. The lighting has yellowy/golden hues; which according to the color theory, yellow could mean being covetous, the woman is greedy to have him at the house for the strange cult her family was upholding, which is later revealed as the narrative of the story progresses thought the film; yellow also means hazard, which could mean the woman, therefore her family, is a hazard for him in a way, they wanted him for his body and his abilities for their own psychotic reasons.
Two close-up shots of him scratching the sides of his bed/chair. It seemed to be a habit of his since there are a bunch of scratch marks on the sides of his bed. The significance of these shots are showing the emotion he is drowning in; he is slowly becoming trapped in his childhood; the shot is planting a seed of being imprisoned. The director, Jordan Peele, subtlety plants that seed into the audience before they see him actually trapped in the basement of his girlfriends family home.
Again the insert of the tea cup is to put emphasis on the fact that this is the tool that puts him into sleep. You can hear the sound of the tea cup prior to seeing the close-up throughout the scene, highlighting its importance. Daniel points out the he “can’t move”, and the audience can now understand why that is; the scene is conditioning the audience to learn that the ceramic mug is the key to have control over him.
As she says the line “sink into the floor” the un-diegetic sound of the score in the background of the scene stops as well as the sound of rain. You can only hear her voice and the mug. It accentuates the power of her words.
Then the sinking occurs, the way this scene is shot and how the sinking happens is simple, it does not have major CGI work. It is just a camera moving behind young Daniel sinking into the bed, and then older Daniel falling into a black void. The un-diegetic sounds of violins are amplified as he is falling down. It is melancholic, it translates perfectly to the audience making them feel as Daniel is feeling, scared, surprised, helpless.
Close-up of him looking terrified while he is under the hypnosis unable to move or ask for help. He straight up looks at the camera as if he is asking the audience to help him through his eyes.
POV shot if Daniel looking at the woman telling him he is in the sunken place. It is using a low angle sort off to point up the power she has over him. She is looking high and mighty over him while he is unable to move.
Low angle of him asking for help while his voice is unable to be heard because of the music score, shows off how helpless he is at that moment. The blue hue is used not only to connote to his childhood -since blue colors where used in the flashback scene- and show he is being trapped into those memories and feelings; but also blue could mean isolation and depression, again amplifying the feelings he had as a child and how he is feeling now.
AS Media Studies 