The Dark Horse By James Napier Robertson Essay Sample

Directed by James Robertson, The Dark Horse is about a mentally ill individual breaking stereotypes and teaching underprivileged kids chess and life lessons. Genesis is a victim of bipolar. He struggled with this illness most of his life until he ended up in a psych ward. As a distraction from his illness and tough childhood, he would play chess with his older brother Arki. When he was released from the psych ward, Genesis joined a chess club to teach kids from his hometown how to play chess. The scene I will be writing about is Genesis’s bipolar attack. My two points are Genesis deals with mental health issues, and people mistreat him without realizing this. The techniques I will be using are Dialogue, Character Action, Tracking Camera Shot, Mise-en-scene, and Lighting.

Firstly, this scene is important because it shows mental health issues. The director uses Dialogue, Character Action, and a Tracking Camera to propose this idea. The protagonist, Genesis, arrived at Noble’s house and found out that the parents of some of the kids are pulling them out of the chess club because he’s homeless. This caused Genesis to have a bipolar attack. Gen became shaky like he couldn’t be still with his posture on the ground. He was breathing incredibly fast and whispering to himself repeatedly. Genesis drove down to the street where a lot of the kids live to try and persuade some of the parents to let their kids go to the chess tournament.  The director deliberately uses Dialogue to display Gen’s mental health issues. We see this when Genesis is muttering to himself as he walks across the street. His breathing is heavy but he tries to control it. This technique teaches the audience about mental health and how it affects people. Genesis tries to use slow breathing and muttering to gain control of his emotions. The dialogue shows how people with mental health issues struggle to take control when they are having an attack. We see this earlier in the film when Genesis has a bipolar attack in the bathroom. He uses deep breathing to try and control his emotions but still struggles. The director also uses character action, which highlights how a bipolar attack can affect someone. After getting told by the parent, they aren’t allowing their kid to come to the chess tournament, Gen has an extreme mood swing. His infectious positivity turns into negative as he walks down the steps in sorrow. His posture is glued to the ground, yet he walks back and forth as if he’s super energetic. The technique is important because it shows how bipolar can affect somebody. Bipolar gives extreme highs and lows. We see this through Genesis as he switches from being sad to happy in seconds.  We see this in the first scene where he goes from happy in the chess store, to sad and screaming outside. Robertson uses a tracking shot to push our understanding of mental health. Instead of pushing us away, the director puts us by Gen’s side. The director places us behind him as if we are following him. By using a tracking shot, we learn more about mental health. We see Genesis’s every action and movement. The audience can clearly see how a mental health attack can affect someone and by putting us in his perspective we can almost feel similar things. These three techniques show my idea. The dialogue shows his muttering and speedy breathing which is common for victims of poor mental health. Character action is used to show his mood swings by his unpredictable movement and the tracking shot puts us in his perspective so we can clearly see his actions. The director used these techniques to highlight what it’s like to have mental health issues. Having mental health issues is horrible. You can’t control your actions, or how you feel. Many people who have mental health disorders face complete social isolation and disrespect from most people. Roberston teaches the audience about what it’s like having a mental health disorder and what they have to deal with.