Analysis of Mise-en-scéne and cinematography in a scene from 'The Hours'

The scene starts with showing us a blue cake which can be associated with masculinity and how it is taking over her life or it could represent the depression she is going through. Also the blue cake looks out of place and highly irregular which could show how women actually killing themselves in the 1950s is also highly irregular. Then it pans out to show Laura alone with no-one around except the blue cake and because women in the 1950s were usually stay at home mums a lot of them were lonely. Also her outfit is brown and her name is Laura Brown this could show how simple lives were perceived as in the 1950s. Then she gets in the car with her son and begins to drive down the road. One thing someone could notice is that the neighbourhood also is seemingly perfect with all the houses looking identical with all cut grass and palm trees identical to each other, there is one thing that is not perfect with this neighbourhood and that is that someone is moving in to a house which could symbolise that the Brown family is going to have a new beginning after Laura does what she does.

Then she gets to the babysitters house and we notice that Laura is in a light side and the babysitter is in the shade this shows the child's mindset of these two people. He sees his mother as a pure good person and the babysitter as a horrible monster taking him away from his mother.