Hunt for the Wilderpeople

In the Hunt for the Wilderpeople film, Taika Waititi’s narration sets off this movie in which the audience can visually reveal characters, shape feelings, and undertake the time and space of the movie. In the opening scene of the film, it starts out showing a shot of the wilderness, a New Zealand forest. This is visual in which the director gives you an exploring idea of the location and where the film is taken place and the nature of the forest.
This opening scene gives you the setting of the film from the starting point of the show. As the film shows a view of the wilderness, it appears as a very long shot which gives you an idea of the long adventure the characters will travel upon. After the introduction of the film as the characters are introduced, the character’s costume is identified. The young thirteen-year-old Ricky isn’t wearing any kind of dirty, shabby clothes which gives you an understanding that he is not poor.
Ricky, one of our main characters’ wardrobe was very vibrant and multi-colored. For the most part, all his outfits were oversize on him and this visual element signifies that he believes he is a lot stronger and bigger than he really is. A relationship begins as the boy is being transferred in a police vehicle by CPS to a rundown farm in the forest where his aunt Bella and uncle Hector live. The mise-en-scene is this film shows a great shot as Ricky the young child is introduced to the husband Hector. The boy is first seen at the dining table of their kitchen in a very balanced view from the women and the husband.

The image looked as though the table was extremely long and this gives a visual element from a view that Ricky is very distant from the husband on the other end of the table and is a way of expressing their disconnection. As the lighting in this room on Ricky is viewed as almost a spotlight and shows high fill lighting, this represents the boy as the center of attention. The father in the room had soft, low fill lighting which shape your understanding that it is not as dramatic. Later, as Ricky gets settled in at his new house, his new foster mother sets Ricky’s new bedroom up, which from the mise-en-scene viewpoint, it looks as though the room was not made for a young man to live in.
These visual elements show us that they made his room this way to make him feel more at home. As the boy sneaks out, he becomes adventurous through the forest and begin to open more to Hector. Ricky and Hector begin to start connecting with one another as the days go by. As they sit outside at dusk in the woods by a campfire, the camera angle shows a mid-shot of the conversation about Amber, showing the emotions on the characters faces. The lighting in this scene of the movie is extremely dull with the only form of lighting being the campfire and this focuses in on the characters faces. A key event in this movie occurs at the end which includes “The Chase”.
There are many long shots showing high angles such as the helicopters looking down, and close ups of them telling Ricky to pull the car over. The lighting conducted in this part of the scene is high key lighting because it becomes dusk towards the end of the film. The film’s mise-en-scene visual aspects shape your feelings in a way that help you to understand the narrative, the characters, and action of the movie because it is a sum of the things we hear, see, and experience while viewing the film. A movie mise-en-scene reflects on our moods as we watch. This film is all about a young boy, and a newly lonely man hoping to connect with one another and find friendship.