Trance: Film Analysis

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Trance The film Trance is mainly focussed around the psychological phenomena of hypnosis. Hypnosis can be defined as ‘A process whereby verbal suggestions made by an individual can be acted on by another who would not normally and voluntarily perform those tasks.’ (Martin, Carlson & Buckist, 2013) In the film, the main character called Simon is hypnotised by an ex-lover to completely forget everything to do with her and their relationship. This claim of total memory loss of a long period of time (the relationship) may be exaggerated and slightly inaccurate. Barnier (2002) found that participant’s semantic memories e.g first day of school could be temporarily impaired through the use of hypnosis to induce posthypnotic amnesia. However, the impairment …show more content…

It illustrates the behaviour and decision making of heroin addicts. One claim this film makes is that heroin addicts are likely to commit crimes. Several criminal acts are seen throughout the film. One example is theft. Characters Renton and Spud steal from a shop and are chased through the streets by security guards. Crimes such as theft are common among heroin users, as they often need a continuous cash flow to support the highly addictive and expensive drug habit. (Buken et al, 2011) Heroin users will often do whatever it takes to get the high the addiction makes them crave – so it often results in criminal activity. Heroin addicts often act impulsively as they seek immediate rewards and do not often consider long term consequences of their actions. The film also depicts the crime of assault several times, usually the character ‘Begbie’ lashing out and seriously harming people. Considering the evidence in existing research, the claim of the link between heroin addicts and criminality appears to be accurate and …show more content…

This claim is supported by research into the life of a man called HM. HM had an operation for epilepsy in the 1950s. surgeons removed a part of his brain which contained the Hippocampus. After the surgery, he could not form new long-term memories – but remembered his old long-term memories. the evidence for HM having anterograde amnesia supports the depiction in Memento of Lenny portraying similar symptoms and behaviour. This makes this aspect of the film realistic and consistent with existing

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