On the malaise and menace of a pencil sharpener: Editing emotional subjectivity from objective reality

Two shots of a pencil being sharpened (Shots 11 and 13) help to convey a sense of bureaucratic malaise and menace. This article focuses primarily on Shots 10–14 in order to demonstrate how the film’s direct cinema-style editing gives added meaning to an otherwise seemingly objective, mundane, quotidian office activity.