Semiotics

This task was to look at a film poster and talk about the denotations and connotations.
Denotation - What we see when we look at an image.
Connotation - What we understand from this image.

 

This is a film poster of a film called 'Perfume'. The black and white background and silhouette of a woman adds a sense of mystery to the poster because the girl's identity is unknown. This means that the girl could be anyone and it makes the audience want to find out more. The colour black usually symbolises death and evil and so hints that the narrative is not pleasant and can be dark at times.

There is one lock of hair that can be seen in colour and it is red/ginger. This could be hinting at who the woman is or the red hair could be significant to the narrative in some way. Stereotypically, redheads have a bad temper and according to legend - they have no soul. This could be hinting something about the character.

The girl's body appears to be turning into red petals which are floating away peacefully. These petals could be linking to perfume as petals make you think of flowers which smell and can sometimes be associated with the smell of perfume. This could be making a link to the woman- saying that she smells like these petals? The colour red has connotations of many things - passion, anger, danger, blood and love. In this case, because the colour red is coming out of a body, the preferred reading is that it is symbolising blood.

The white glow immediately behind and surrounding the woman could be seen as angelic. The colour white also suggests innocence and purity, suggesting that the girl should not have been murdered.