Aeon Flux Pilot Analysis part 3

The rest of the pilot episode continues as we see Aeon stumbling across a scene of violence between what looks like two factions. Their bodies lay strewn about and we see Aeon catch two of the men from opposing factions wrestling and fighting over a briefcase. After a short exchange the briefcase falls at Aeon's feet and she picks it up. One of the men approaches her to fight and we see as he goes to strike her she cuts him down with her machine gun.

The sound effects here are really strange we get this almost video game like stuttering sound of him being shot that morphs into the sound of the guy standing behind him laughing at the guy dieing. Its a very eerie scene and I love how we get the chance to see through the sunglasses of the guy and then those sunglasses get shot off and we see Aeon again without the orange tint. It really adds something to the scene to have it suddenly change into a monochromatic image for a few seconds. 

Aeon leaves the scene kicking the other goon in the head and we see that this guy much like nearly everyone else in this scene has the virus, before cutting away we see him look at a gun nearby. One thing to notice about all of this is that each scene logically leads into the other when strung together. Cause in the next scene we see him walking into the scene with a gun, as Aeon looks out the window and we see we are even closer to her goal. 

She opens the briefcase and we see what looks like some sort of serum for the virus sitting in a container. Aeon not caring at all about the serum throws it on the floor as the man approaches with the gun stumbling over himself as the virus sets in. Aeon loads it up with a bomb and we are treated with another cool hallucinatory moment as the bomb explodes it turns into a fish and the shapes form and change in slow motion as he lays dying from the virus. 

ITs important to note here that all the elements needed to correctly communicate what she is doing and why are repeated throughout each section or act of scenes. We see this as she escapes through the vent duct and makes her way into the building that is her goal. What do we see immediately upon her entering the room? 

We immediately see her pull open a map, look upwards up a elevator shaft and then eye ball the map again and pointing at the figure. She pushes the up button with her gun and boards the elevator. From the directors commentary its mentioned that Aeon's outfit was made this way to make it easy to express what it is that she is doing, much like the same way a dancer or a superhero wears tight clothes, Aeon is nearly nude to make her movements about her and not about her clothes. 

You can see this kind of graphic read throughout the show, notice there isnt much going on in terms of lighting in any of these scenes, and there is none unless it really serves to set the scene. Peter Chang said he wanted to choregraph her as a dancer and I think he did a good job of that here when we see her get on the elevator NOTHING about this scene is typical. 

First off this is more like a lounge area than a typical elevator since we see all the different furniture arranged around the room. Terry Goodchild walks into the room with a female and begins to lick her ear, they begin to get sexual and we see this turns Aeon Flux on and we get this strange reaction from her as she smells and licks the phallic like shape of her gun. Terry Goodchild seems to notice her out of the corner of his eye, they seem to be making eye contact and this is communicated that both are looking at each other and there eyes are at the same level for each frame. 

Aeon begins to make sexual innuendo like moves by placing her gun in a nearby ring and running it around as she bites and runs her lip across the table. Soon another set of guards walk into the elevator and Aeon sneaks off the elevator. She steps out into the greenish environment of the facility and makes her way up a ladder. We then cut back to Terry Goodchild who has a woman bathing the woman he was just with, he seems to be extracting some of the serum into a syringe.

We then cut back to Aeon again as she makes her way through another shaft and we see a really creative way artists save time in animation. We see her begin to run down the hall, but instead of showing us another cut of her running we instead follow the line of the wire held up on the wall as it moves down the wall she is running beside. We hear her feet run and then the camera stops where a nail or screw has fallen off and landed on the ground. 

Because of the angle when Aeon steps on it she never notices it as it is stuck in her shoe, she begins to ascend  to the climax of the show. This is an example of showing us some critical bit of information that the character does not know which raises the tension because we know something is about to happen that the character is unaware of and that we cannot stop. 

Aeon ascends the ladder and we get a wide enough shot for us to know for sure that this is the same location she has been aiming for this whole time. The threat of what would happen if she falls is shown to us and then we are reminded and shown the nail in the shoe again as she crawls to the window.

The last part will be tommorrow, which I will be going a little bit more indepth into the last 5 minutes  of the episode.