I believe the director was trying
to convey the idea that these two were fighting for dominance. At first, the
woman seems calm, glancing at the clock nonchalantly and talking to the man who
entered the room in a calm tone. But after the man becomes more intense
eventually becoming physical, the woman begins to seem more panicked but not
before retorting, still believing that she had the upper hand with the document
on the table. An example of this is how the man tosses the table, and the woman
shrivels backwards, realizing that this man is unhinged.
The
first part of this scene is we immediately watch the man walk through the door
with a very miffed expression. We get a shot-reverse shot of the woman and the
man, the woman seeming confident while the man glances at the camera. This
shows the audience that he is aware that they are not having a conversation in
private, which make his actions later in the scene very unexpected. After a
short stare down with no words exchanged, the man places a piece of paper on
the desk. The woman glances down, and then looks up with a slight grin. This shows
both the audience and the man that she is cocky, and believes that her plan is coming
to fruition or rather things are going her way. The man then turns away and
there is a jump cut to two people, a man and a woman looking at the room with
concerned facial expressions. After the woman is done looking at the paper, she
sits back in her chair and glances at the ticking clock. Finally, the silence
is broken by the woman’s stern demands for a plane which is met by a retort which
she ignores. Her ignoring his statements angers the man for one and frames the
scene as her making demands, not an interrogation as the room would lead one to
believe. After more verbal debate, the man says something that the woman thinks
is an empty threat. Completely disregarding her situation, she tells him to “stop
wasting time”. All of this is framed with shot reverse shots with each
character making a retort to the last spoken statement much like a debate. The
woman, not believing the man is making such rash decisions again responds in disbelief.
This leads the man to walk closer to where the woman is sitting. Suddenly, his
voice explodes, and he throws the table across the room. The woman, obviously
not expecting this, tenses up. The power dynamic of the room shifts from the
woman to the man, and the scene jump cuts to the people outside also tense,
knowing that the safety of the woman is now much more unclear. The woman stays
calm, and makes another threat. The camera zooms in to the man’s face, giving
the feeling that he is holding back or thinking on what to do next. He also
visibly begins to shake. After gathering his bearings, he sits down. Feeling
safe again, the woman makes another snide remark and then smiles, causing the
man to explode again, with a pan shot of him pushing the chair against the
wall. A split screen is present here, showing the man’s coworkers rushing to
the room and a close-up of the woman’s face. This is the first instance in this
clip of the woman having any other obvious expression. Both the running and the
intense music make the audience tense as well. Finally, the dynamic switches
and the man is finally in control. The scene concludes with the main character
being brought back to reality, by the coworkers voice.
Every aspect
of this scene lends to the idea that there was a power struggle in the
interrogation. The actions of both the characters, the emotions, and the mans
outbursts make an interesting and visually appealing scene.
