Quick Thoughts on 'The Talk: True Stories about the Birds and the Bees'

The Talk: True Stories about the Birds and the Bees by Alain Delannoy

The film The Talk truly captured the essence of the varying talks amongst parents and children about sexual education and advice. Speaking of the organization of the film–I felt that I had a love-hate relationship to the artist’s decision go having different colours for each of the person speaking. It was nice in the sense that the colours helped in distinguishing one story from another, but it also felt a little amateur–I think I felt this way as it was probably the simplest way to go about solving this problem of distinction. Having similar colours would have caused chaos or boredom but a good solution could have been to have shades of the same colour or a small gradience between two colours (like red and yellow encompassing hues of orange). I felt that the stories accompanied by the graphically descriptive elements were strong enough and could have stood on its own without the addition of colour. I loved how the artist began with so much visual space in the film through the use of silhouettes for the figures of the characters. This was especially effective as by the end, the viewers were fed with so much information both audibly and visually. I wonder how many real stories the artist heard before choosing which ones to include in the film. The film was attention-grabbing and humorous, and it was especially insightful to understand how different people from different cultures and backgrounds deal with the talk; also how the next generation would deal with it differently.