Film and the Use of Themes Motifs and Symbols

Atonement

Joe Wright's 2007 Atonement opens with a shot of the home of Briony et al. in miniature -- a replica of the mansion estate where the main characters live and work in England, 1935. The shot pulls back as the keys of a typewriter are heard clacking away (prior to this, the clacks coincide with the appearance of the text on-screen announcing both title and setting of the film -- and the shift from non-diegetic to diegetic sound is the first of many surprises in this cleverly crafted period piece by Wright). Wright's command of the material is as impressive as his work in Pride and Prejudice and as mesmerizing as it would later be in Anna Karenina. Here, the whole of the film, which is "a story about storytelling" (Santas, Wilson, Colavito, Baker 60), is foreshadowed in one subtle pull-back as the camera, focused squarely on the miniature doll-house replica of the homestead backs up to reveal a line of animal play toys, marching in a row away from the house towards some ark-like object off-screen: yet -- as the camera pans -- and here is another reveal -- the "ark" is 12-year-old Briony, whose key tapping is the source of the clackety-clack, and who embodies in her own efforts to be a young playwright the preservation of life, just as Noah did with his building of the ark (symbolic references such as this are dropped like subtle clues, effecting a delightful and intelligent appeal for film-goers yearning for a more mature, thematic and literary approach to cinema). The effort is not wasted here and the effect is one of the most subtle yet engaging hints as to who Briony is and what she will become: her life-long work as an author (which will serve as the substance of Atonement) will be her attempt to preserve or "save" what she herself in her childish innocence and cruelty was half-guilty of destroying.

The film is thus centered on Briony, who is an intensely creative and curious girl in 1935 (with a flair for the dramatic). Her attention is caught by Robbie, the son of a worker on the estate; Robbie is in love with Cecilia (played deftly by Keira Knightley); and it is the fountain one afternoon that their love (displayed antagonistically at first) literally springs forth after Cecilia sheds (the majority of) her clothes to retrieve a broken piece of pottery that has fallen into the fountain. Her (innocent?) strip tease (and Robbie's courteous/embarrassed/yet-obviously-attracted deference (Robbie is played with all the charm, charisma, conflict and pent up frustration typical of a James McAvoy character) are enough to fuel the library lovemaking that will ensue minutes later in the film (after a "joke" erotic letter accidentally gets delivered to Cecilia and the "tease" is reversed, leading to an obvious eruption of desire on her part as well). In short, the two fall in love and consummate before the shocked eyes of Briony who happens to see both the fountain scene and now the library one. She is hurt and confused -- and later when questions about a rape arise, Briony fingers Robbie as an act of revenge. Robbie is innocent, of course, but off he goes to prison -- for four years.

The seemingly effortless way in which Wright manages this series of dramatic events is remarkable: and the use of water, both as a thematic element and a symbolic motif (water is purifying -- it washes away the sins -- and crushing), plays an integral part. As Peter Travers states, "Atonement sweeps you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance" -- and "waves" is right. Even Roger Ebert notes that the "scenes have floated effortlessly" and part of the reason it seems that way is Wright's usage of water as a motif. Water is the element which is pivotal in the transformation of the relationship between Cecilia and Robbie at the fountain: without it, the erotic eruption between the two would have most likely continued to simmer just below the surface. But because Cecilia makes bold to take a dip, she goes in as one person and comes out as quite another -- before, a somewhat cruel and teasing maiden; after, an alive young woman awakened by the awareness of flesh-and-blood desire and the obvious effect she has on the young man.

But water returns in the next scene as Cecilia is teased by her older brother and his friend at the lake. Cecilia, bored, affronted, and running from her feelings (as usual) dives into the water to avoid the question put to her ("Has something happened between you and Robbie?") -- and, making a splash (with swimming cap on -- a stylish nod to the director's penchant for detail), she attempts to retrieve her former self. Water thus becomes a portal by which the characters weave in and out of innocence and experience, as well as guilt and redemption (indeed, the implied "ark" imagery is full of all the connotative and denotative meanings that water holds -- both as a punisher, in the form of a flood from the Noah story, and as a cleanser, in the form of washing away sin). Here, however, it is merely used as a cinematic motif, by Wright, to string together the scenes and to show the way in which the characters wrestle with their interior life.

The sound of Cecilia's splash into the lake as she disappears dissolves into the sound of the splash that Robbie makes as he reappears from his submersion in the tub in his own room where he is bathing. (Wright cuts the scenes in this manner to further fuse the two lovers together, cleverly using the water motif as a unifying device). As Robbie reclines in the tub and looks up out through the window, his end is foreshadowed by the bomber jet that flies overhead: he doesn't know it yet, but his life will turn in such a way that he will be obliged to go off to fight in WW2 -- and there die. But Wright only gives the audience a hint of this -- and no more -- with the passing of the plane overhead. (The same hint is given regarding Cecilia, too, and later Briony: water connects them all and is the door by which their futures are seen: Cecilia will literally be covered by water in the tunnels when they flood -- disappearing from life forever. As for Briony, a different, more Biblical fate, literary in its capacity, but Biblical nonetheless, awaits her).

As Wright would have it, once Briony begins to wrestle with her own feelings, she creeps down to the stream at night and shines her light on the empty row boat, foreshadowing the loneliness of the fate that awaits her (she will be the helmsman of that lonely craft of atonement as she seeks later in her adult life to make up for the sin she is about to commit). At this moment, however, she cannot know what is in store for her, and she is startled by the jumping of a goose -- a symbol of the war between innocence and animalism that is also in her.