Conventions of psychological drama

Psychological dramas concentrate on a character driven narrative, exploring the development of characters and their inner struggles. We see this in the short film, as the story follows Aria on her challenging journey to find her passion for photography. Moreover,  usually the narrator in these films is unreliable since the storytelling comes from the character themselves, leaving the perspective to be subjective as we see with Aria and her distorted view of her photographs. Another convention we can associate with this genre is symbolism usually set as abstract imagery and metaphorical elements. This is to help show the characters’ mental state more deeply and also to leave room for the audiences own interpretation of the story. In this movie a crucial symbolic element was the lighting as it shifted  gloomy and deep into bright colours portraying Arias mental state and its development. Finally, a significant element of a psychological drama is that their endings are usually open ended, leaving unanswered questions to engage the audience in the plot, encouraging them to create their own interpretation of the story. We see this in “See the light” as the ending concludes with Aria having a connection with the ballet dancers on stage, coming to a realisation about her passion which she was searching for the entire film.