Warm Bodies: On extensive voice over and book adaptations

After seeing the film Warm Bodies, I thought that it's style of opening was one that could be very interesting to look at and so I decided to include it as one of my studied film openings. The premise of this film, based on the amazing novel by Isaac Marion, explores the life of a zombie, known simply as "R" the only remaining fragment of his real name. Therefore, in the novel, a great deal of the first few chapters are purely introverted thoughts coming from R's narration. This could have been a disaster to translate to screen, but the clever use of voice over provides a witty and strangely thought provoking introduction to the unusual film.

One of the things I find most interesting about this particular use of voice over is the way in which it captures the idea of immediate thought, rather than reminiscence or indeed explanation. This could have easily appeared too descriptive or monotonous, but the dialogues constant switching between mild humour and serious thought kept me hooked throughout the entire beginning. The images on screen also reflect everything that is being said by R, or contrast to it respectively. An example of this is when we see the abandoned airport transformed by a flashback in time to see living people at Christmas. Whilst R is thinking of what it was like when everyone could communicate, the people in the flashback are doing the exact opposite: everyone is in their own world influenced by technology, interaction at its minimum. In this scene, the audience is already presented with this strange contrast of ideas and what the idea of connecting with people really means. Is it as R believes it, present and physical, or as we perceive it, through long distance connectivity? However, whilst posing these deep conundrums, the lighthearted, gentle music in the background lightens the mood, completely contrasting again to the dark lighting and miserable, destroyed mise en scene. It also connotes to me some kind of innocence or even naivety, similar to that in Forrest Gump, yet here it is far more subtle and presented in a less 'childish' way.
Along with this, many of the camera angles used are quite static and focus slowly on the mindless shuffling of the zombies and R, reflecting I think, the lack of life in them. This is juxtaposed next to the faster, sweeping movement of the camera as it circles into the living flashback, connoting the idea of busy, flowing life. The colours used in this scene are also far brighter than the dull greys scene on the zombie ridden airport, similar to the warm lighting.

Addressing the subject of works of literature being adapted into film is quite tricky. Often, much of the book is sacrificed in its transition to screen and for obvious reasons. However, sometimes this does effectively narrow the storyline completely, as smaller back stories not key to the main narrative are cut. I think in some adaptations, this can be a downfall of the film - some of the charm that fills the book is removed for the purposes of fast past storyline to keep the audiences attention. It always falls into the hands of the script writers, deciding what to include and what to miss out, as many a time, smaller key moments have been cut to fit in those of pure action (an example of this is the Destruction of the Burrow scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) that are sometimes invented for the film. In the case of Warm Bodies, they have captured the feel of the novel nearly perfectly. Director Jonathan Levine, although lightening its mood, has kept the story exact to the sentiments shared by Isaac Marion in the novel, with the exception of the latter part of the film where the storyline changes. Of course, as a reader who enjoyed the novel immensely, I would have liked to see some of the character development worked on. But of course, the scope of the film will not often include all that the writers deem to be unnecessary. But, in the case of this film, I think the filmmakers have produced something that is one of the most faithful representations of (non-Young Adult) literature I have seen in a while.

 

Creditless opening 4 mins of Warm Bodies (2013)