Love Me Or Leave Me Alone

Duane Hopkins's, Love Me Or Leave Me Alone focused on a teenage relationship, you are not sure exactly where it is leading from the beginning with it opening with a argument with makes them storm off in separate ways. This gritty social realism concentrates on two central characters, Hopkins has very cleverly portrayed these characters, using a realistic narrative and a typical rural setting allowing the audience to easily relate to them, with 'teenage love' being an everyday theme for young people. 

I personally enjoyed the film, I found that the characters were easy to connect to, especially the female, as you can feel her anger and upset in some ways. The rural setting I feel certainly adds to the realism, one thing I didn't quite understand or temporarily got disconnected with was the use of the car as the female waved down an passing vehicle. It almost forced me as the audience to feel concern for the female, thinking that the vehicle would have a bigger role to play in the narrative, partly because of the use of the loud engine sound but it appears that she had a safe journey making me feel misled. This could of been the directors intention, but I personally didn't like it.

In many ways, the film was a success, one reason for this is I feel is the films honesty and simplicity, focusing on a simple 'first love', for me it's unpolished presentation makes for a more relatable experience, making it simple to watch and enjoy. The actors in piece were realistic, they easily delivered messages and true emotion to the audience without the use of dialogue at times, which adds to the sense of realism in the piece. The editing wasn't great at times, but it didn't ruin my overall experience of the film.

One scene that didn't work for me was the sex scene, the directors use of low key lighting to possibly show passion did not transfer well for me, also the editing in the scene confused me. The film is meant to be gritty but throughout the film you are made to almost feel some love, and with the sex scene being a set moment of reconciliation and make up, it felt almost too dirty and misleading due to the lighting and editing. I feel the director aims were to realistically portray a very real scenario in the majority of peoples lives, the director, in my opinion has successfully fulfilled his aim, using realistic setting and narrative. 

The structure of the film was reasonably simple, making it easy to understand, with the characters constantly driving the narrative to another setting. The director uses a lot of wide angle shots to establish the setting. Overall I enjoyed the short film, it was a great snapshot of first love and a teenage relationship.