Dramaturgic reversal — audience expectation inverted deliberately. Protagonist becomes antagonist, victim becomes perpetrator — classic plot device.
Inversion works most effectively when you use the first half of your film to build a clear moral or emotional expectation in the audience — and then systematically dismantle it. It's not about surprise for surprise's sake, but about a dramaturgical inversion that flips the viewer's trust and forces them to re-evaluate their previous interpretation of the story.
On set and in dramaturgy, this works on multiple levels. You first show the character in a light that evokes sympathy or antipathy — then you reveal information that makes this judgment impossible. The cinematographer in your film, who as a viewer has always been close to a certain protagonist, must suddenly realize that this protagonist is the actual antagonist. Or vice versa: the character you introduced as a villain turns out to be a victim. This only works if you establish the visual and narrative anchors in the first act in such a way that they can be revoked later — without appearing cheap. This requires planning in the screenplay and consistency in execution.
A classic practical example: You follow a character for minutes from their subjective perspective, with close-ups and emotional camerawork that creates empathy. In the second act, you then learn that this perspective was manipulative — that the film was unfaithful to you. That is inversion. It differs from a mere plot twist in that not only the story is inverted, but your attitude towards the entire narrated world. It's thematic inversion — when what the film initially presents as a virtue turns out to be a vice at the end.
The danger: too subtle, and the audience won't notice the turn. Too clumsy, and it seems like manipulation rather than an artistic device. The best inversion builds through foreshadowing that is only recognizable on a second viewing — lighting setups, editing rhythms, sound design that unconsciously prepare for a different interpretation. This is the work in editing and directing: designing the image and sound levels in such a way that they already anticipate the inversion before the audience rationally grasps it.