Her (2013) Analysis – Masterclass On Contours Of Colour Correction

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What is your perspective of love? What is it to you that makes your endorphins go bananas over a person? Is it the presence of the person or is it the feeling that someone is there for you when you need him or her? Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) is a beautifully crafted film that makes the audience engagement so subtle that one doesn’t even realise that he or she just had an epiphany while feeling the sheer pain and loneliness of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix).

Theodore played exceptionally well by Joaquin embraces the character’s strife and Joaquin Phoenix’s personal life had been extremely tumultuous and he embraces the character of a broken person going through a tough divorce. The quality of writing is so beautiful because being an antisocial element of the society Theo works at www.beautifulhandwrittenletters.com where his job is to write letters for others with emotions ranging from solemn to sublime. It’s like being told every day that there are people in the world who are having a person who cares which makes it even more interesting and a filmmaking genius.


The Importance of Three Colour Rule.

The whole film was shot with a proper and precise understanding of the emotional content and justice in portraying it. The three colour rule makes sure that every frame follows a strict colour pattern which makes the whole film more engaging. In filmmaking the two basic reasons why colour plays an important role are

  • It helps to create the right mood and catch the essence.
  • It helps you to allow your character to stand out and make the background blend with the characters while being minimal about it.

In Her the colour which is extremely dominant is a variation of different brown hues, then the red is a key secondary colour which allows your character to be more elaborative and finally the accent colour is blue which is beautifully done in the colour correction. The red colour is beautifully complemented by the dominance of shades of brown which establishes a sense of disconnect of Theo and the world is extremely colourless for him as brown takes up almost everything in the frame, allowing the character to be at the centre of the frame with an effortless charm.


Love is a Cohabitation of Two Intelligence.

In these recent times, people have resorted to cohabitation physically and sometimes your intelligence is not interlinked which creates several problems in a relationship which vary but the end results are pretty devastating due to lack of connection. In Spike Jonze’s Her, the cinematography, soundtrack and colour provide an end result which gets you academy awards in numbers. There is a sense of disconnect between the world surrounding Theo and Samantha (An Artificial Intelligence Operating System) who comes as a saviour and a guardian of his life and partner in loneliness. The intellectual connect of the Theo and Samantha is on a level where they share one of the most intellectual relationships with a philosophy of attraction which has depth and is not a forced but a relationship where the whole world is a backdrop but not the subject. Love as a concept and the settings allow it rather than forcing it. Beauty and presence are subjective and the relationship between two intelligence is more important. When someone is beautiful it means that he or she is closer to the ultimate preconceived and utopian notion of beauty that you possess the idea of than others.


The Philosophy of ‘Her’

Our different in perspective is the main reason that turmoils in a relationship happen and the Marxist Theory of Love is applied in this movie and Woody Allen’s attempts of realizing in his film Annie Hall and with Her, this attempt was executed with brilliance. Sigmund Freud provided a theory of a psychoanalytic behaviour between two people and according to Woody Allen it is like not belonging to any club that would have someone like him which is the key joke in his adult life in term of his relationships with women and this approach is crafted in Her with a sense of loneliness which allows us to engage with Theo on an emotional level.


The Willingness to Connect whilst Being Antisocial.

The basis of Theodore’s problem lies with the world leaving him alone and the process he actually bought to seek happiness. Escapism at it’s finest and sense of mutual respect for intelligence. Theo wants to connect with the world around him but his resentment towards everyone is overwhelmed his mind which refrains him from social settings. Theo doesn’t want to be a part of a club of people where he feels worthy as doesn’t consider himself worthy of being there and this makes his resentment amplified.

Her acts a mirror of love and cohabitation in the current era and allows the viewers to understand that the intelligence is extremely important to make sure that your connection with your partner should be at a level of intelligence. The way melancholy and love are intertwined is an experience to be a part of.

A filmmaking genius by Spike Jonze.


Her (2013) is streaming on Netflix.

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Shreshtha Shukla
Shreshtha Shukla
"Thou art the suffering from which unwarranted melancholia emerges" Shreshtha Shukla is a writer, teacher, and a film enthusiast.

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