The Orphanage (Spanish: El Orfanato) is a 2007 Spanish-language horror film and the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona. The film stars Belén Rueda as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but a problem arises when she and Carlos realize that Simón believes he has a masked friend named Tomás with whom he will run away. After an argument with Laura, Simón is found to be missing.
During the memory sequence at the very beginning of the opening scene the camera will always follow the same little girl, which we later find to be Simóns mother, she remains at the centre of focus throughout the flashback, however there is a moment of shot-reverse-shot between Simóns mother and a woman who works at the orphanage. The dream sequence begins with an establishing or master shot which sets the scene and foreshadows where the action will take place, there is then a vertical track down towards the girl hitting the tree and counting
During the opening credits we see a very clammy grey coloured arm reach in slowly revealing more flesh and a grey sleeve the hand of this person, which can be assumed to be a child as it looks like the arm of a young girl, however, that is a personal opinion, is seen to then scratch at the grey wallpaper background revealing a bright crimson and gold wallpaper with the same design there are also tears and cracks in the wall, i will talk about this more and discuss the connotations and semiotics of such a shot later in this article
The camera uses a conventional horizontal track which goes through the wall while the woman is heading to tend to her adopted son Simón, (we do not know it is Simón at this point however).
In terms of marketing el orfanato used a simple and strong poster to show the feeling of this film as you can see it has the ripped wallpaper which is red which signify's the death in this film and the love in this film. The pictures show the plot narrative of the 'boy with the sack head' and of the seaside where Simon first finds him.
During the memory sequence at the very beginning of the opening scene the camera will always follow the same little girl, which we later find to be Simóns mother, she remains at the centre of focus throughout the flashback, however there is a moment of shot-reverse-shot between Simóns mother and a woman who works at the orphanage. The dream sequence begins with an establishing or master shot which sets the scene and foreshadows where the action will take place, there is then a vertical track down towards the girl hitting the tree and counting
During the opening credits we see a very clammy grey coloured arm reach in slowly revealing more flesh and a grey sleeve the hand of this person, which can be assumed to be a child as it looks like the arm of a young girl, however, that is a personal opinion, is seen to then scratch at the grey wallpaper background revealing a bright crimson and gold wallpaper with the same design there are also tears and cracks in the wall, i will talk about this more and discuss the connotations and semiotics of such a shot later in this article
The camera uses a conventional horizontal track which goes through the wall while the woman is heading to tend to her adopted son Simón, (we do not know it is Simón at this point however).
In terms of marketing el orfanato used a simple and strong poster to show the feeling of this film as you can see it has the ripped wallpaper which is red which signify's the death in this film and the love in this film. The pictures show the plot narrative of the 'boy with the sack head' and of the seaside where Simon first finds him.
