There are many reasons why this scene hurts so much…
It’s the end of the Doctor and Clara’s journey, they’ve discovered that they are the creature of the Hybrid prophecy and that one of them has to go. Worse still, the way in which they have to part is through a gamble over which of them will lose their memories of the other.
That’s all part of the narrative reasoning behind the emotion of this scene, but the thing that I am hyper-aware of every time I rewatch Hell Bent is the directing.
I like to call this ‘visual frustration’, where the camera is focused on two characters but they’re never properly in the same frame together.
Clara appears as a blurred figure in the background, the Doctor is shot to frequently have his back to the camera and even to us. Even when they’re facing each other, even after they mutually agree to use the neural block together, one of them is obscured in some way.
Throughout their stories, there’s been a big visual emphasis on putting the two of them in the same frame - a particular shot that comes to mind is the parallel one in The Time of the Doctor and Last Christmas, where they’re almost nose-to-nose as if they’re seeing each other for the first time (and - in the former - they are). It’s how their relationship has been visually built…
But here, there is a real, tangible divide in the scene that’s visually indicative that they can never truly be ‘whole’ again, or else risk loosing damnation upon the stars.
Even in the diner, this is a recurring visual theme - though there are a few moments throughout the retelling of the story that frames them together, the bookends of their narrative are divided.
This is it. This is the end for them, and there’s no going back.
Anyway, @racheltalalay is a genius director and I eagerly await the day that I see her name quite deservedly on something like a Star Wars film…
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