How does the shot add to the narrative elements of the story?
This shot is taken from right after she reaches Berlin and rides a cab. This scene shows a contrast between the scene where she is riding the cab to the airport in New York. In New York, Esty had to crouch, hide and conceal her identity in the cab, in case someone noticed her and was looking extremely distressed. In contrast to that, Esty’s body posture is a lot more open and doesn’t have to crouch in the taxi like in New York. This also allows her to look out the window into the “real world” as oppose to how she was forced to live a certain lifestyle in her secluded community in New York. This can symbolise how the move to Berlin has allowed her to breathe and able to express herself without the need to conceal herself, as well as experience what the real world is like.
This shot is taken when Esty goes to the beach with her new friends. While her fiends are all wearing more revealing clothing choices than she is (bikinis and boardshorts), Esty wears more conservative clothing. As Esty has never experienced something like this before, by going into the waters wearing the clothes that she is comfortable with shows that she is taking control of her own narrative. That she is trying to get out of her comfort zone, but in her own terms. Esty taking off her wig can also sybolise freedom, in a sense that she is being her true self. The big ocean background in this shot reflects the vastness of the world and how there are still many things that Esty has not experienced or seen before.