For a balanced consideration of characters

The visual comparison of weights carried by different characters creates a physical sensation in the viewer. These burdens, whether material or symbolic, reveal power dynamics and engage our sensory perception of the film far beyond mere narration.

A Backpack and a Bodybuilder

If we imagine two characters of the same build and physical strength, each with a backpack—one heavily loaded and the other very light—their rhythms, gaits, and energies will be completely different. Their respective dynamics will be entirely unique depending on the weight they carry, represented on screen by the size of their backpacks. Our physical sensation related to these characters is tied to our awareness of the weight on their shoulders, which is visually apparent.

TikTok videos of the bodybuilder Anatoli are enlightening in this regard. Anatoli is an extremely strong bodybuilder but rather slender. He pretends to be a gym janitor, wearing oversized work overalls that make his frame appear even thinner. He plays the role of a very insecure man. He approaches massive bodybuilders and, as if it were nothing, effortlessly lifts weights that the others struggle with. There is an incredible reversal, both for the bodybuilders themselves, who react with hilarious surprise, and for the viewers, as the whole point of these hidden camera pranks. It’s like lifting a one-liter bottle of mercury without knowing what’s inside: you’re extremely surprised to feel that it weighs 7 kilos instead of the usual one kilo for a bottle of that size.

Volume, Comparison, and Sensation

These two examples show that visible volume is always associated with weight or force. In the case of two similar characters carrying backpacks of different sizes, it is through the contrast between the two that we feel the effect of the weight even more. We sense, through comparison, the differences in the characters’ experiences, their feelings, energies, speeds, strengths, and limitations, which are distinct for each. The comparison of multiple characters immerses us in a form of physical sensation. The weights these characters carry define them, not just narratively, but also physically, in terms of sensations within the film. In the beginning of John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian (1982), young Conan is chained to one of the spokes of a massive horizontal wheel, pushed by dozens of other enslaved men. We see the stages of his body growing, and by the end, as a muscular adult, he pushes the enormous wheel alone. We knew its weight from the number of men required earlier, and this weight represents the extent of his strength. This showcases the power of the character through a simple relationship to weight, represented on screen by various characters and their comparisons.

This effect not only makes the film “physical” but also serves a narrative purpose. In a film about sexism, for example, we might see a woman carrying all the suitcases while the man carries nothing, or in a spaghetti western like Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), the dominated character must carry more than the dominant one. This serves a function in the story and its themes, and it also makes us feel, through comparison, the different physical sensations of the characters before us.

These weights can be of other natures besides mechanical—they can be psychological burdens, weights of memory, history, joy or sorrow, the weight of remembrance or forgetting, and so on. The idea is that we can compare the rhythms, energies, and emotions of different characters in the story.

Variations in the Nature of Weights

For this to work well and for the physical sensation to be felt by the viewer, there must be visible signs on screen of these differences in weight carried by the two or more characters. We need to signify these weights through something other than backpacks! It could be a new outfit versus a worn one, a neat hairstyle versus a disheveled one, or white skin versus black skin in a racist context, for example. A new car versus an old one, or even a large house versus a small apartment, and so on.

If these weights are materialized, we will strongly feel the difference between the characters. We will, in a way, inhabit the gap in perception of the weights carried by the various characters during the scenes. This is a technique that anchors physical sensations in the experience of watching a film. Of course, as viewers, this is not conscious—we simply feel like we’re witnessing a scene where two characters have different limitations, one carrying a heavy load and the other a light one. We might associate this with the story, with the simple narrative of one character dominating the other or one being luckier than the other. But in reality, it also engages, without us consciously realizing it, our sensations during the viewing of the film.