I Do Air - Martina Amati (2009)

Although this film was quite confusing to me when I first saw it, I thought it was a really good one to analyse in context of sound, due to it's vast use of sound throughout with barely any dialogue.

Opening with an atmos track, gives the audience the sense of a large space, which is then enforced by the image of a swimming pool. The distant voices of children can be heard in the background as we see several diving from the boards. The way the sound is change to be like it's underwater is clever and adds to the realism of the location. The tone that starts up when the girl is at the edge of the board, adds to the uneasy atmosphere that the girl is feeling and helps the audience to emphasize with her. The ticking sound that comes in, makes the audience feel like a clock is counting away the seconds the girl is taking to decide whether to jump. When it is revealed to be an instructor tapping the rhythm for the synchranised swimmers it is a clever misconception.

As the girl holds her breath, all sound stops. This seems to give the impression of the character trying to escape and block out the realism of her surroundings. And when she can't hold her breath anymore all the sounds return and her disappointment is obviously shown through her performance. She was unable to escape and was forced back into the reality that she's not ready to dive.

In the changing rooms, the tone appears again beneath the diegetic sound so of the baby crying and the dialogue of the women. They seem to grow louder as the girl sits there and the audience can start to feel her frustration and unease. So when she holds her breath again the sound again stops. But the strange tone remains, that gives the scene an ethereal feel to it, to enhance the fact it is this girls fantasy that she is floating as if underwater. But again her fantasy is shattered by her need to breath and all sound returns, with the appearance of the swimmers, so it seems very loud and brings back the realism of her surroundings.  

The ending scene's ethereal quality is enhanced by the appearance of the soundtrack. However, despite this and the audience's logical conclusion that this is again another of the girl's fantasies, it is never actually confirmed whether she truly experienced this event or not.

It's an interesting film, that through my second viewings, became clearer about it's depiction of a girls' quest for escapism and a sense of freedom that swimming and water can connote.