Previous part: Read first part for disclaimer: FRAME 4 TIME INDEX: 00:01:05.357
We are confronted with a bleak, dim, turby, rain-stricken road meandering through a yet unknown settlement. A heavy feeling of dread sets in. Where have we been taken? Why are we forced to watch things unfold at the very limit of visual perceptibility? Yes, we are apparently experiencing an ongoing fade-in, but to what end? Or rather: From what onset? If we went backwards in time, frame by frame, and if we had a magical device capable of brightening the scene to unlimited extents, could we go on forever? Congruosly, would "Desolation of Smaug" then start with the Eru Ilúvatars act of creation?
Questions mount. A feeling of unease that has already set in several frames ago begins to fester. What is all this darkness? Why can't the light penetrate it properly? Is this to be an allegory toward the incessant struggle between good and evil - hinting at the eventual triumph of evil, supported by the corrosive nature of time? Or does it anticipate the heat death of our universe? Is thermodynamic pessimism warranted, even encouraged by this film?
Enhancing the image (brightness, contrast and color saturation) feels like putting whipped cream on top of poison: It only serves to amplify the overall feeling of desperation and doom when being confronted with this grotesquely grim landscape. Especially the house on the left radiates an eerie aura of detachment from reality: a netherworldly vibe of nonbelonging, a vista so uncanny, it freezes the soul.
Calculating the average color of (non-enhanced) frame 4 yields the color #040404 or RGB 4,4,4. A signifier of death in chinese numerology. Of all the frames we have analyzed thus far, this is the pit of despair. A frame of creeping cataclysm, a cassandric forebearer of cathastrophe to come. We have to sit and accept it apprehensively. A totally black frame would have been easier to accept than this all-encompassing Danielewskian darkness.
