The opening scene begins with a low resonating note on a piano. The music continues in a sombre manner creating the perfect atmosphere to suit the following montage of images from the city of Bruges.
A series of seemingly insignificant objects and buildings are seen bathed in Chiaroscuro lighting, accompanied by a pitch black background highlighting these images.
This suggests that that the images are more relevant than we know at this point of the film. As we make our way through the slide show a voice begins to dictate the events that lead the talker to end up in Bruges. He describes how "after I killed him" he threw the gun in the Thames and washed the blood off of his hands in a burger king. The images at this point appear very gothic providing an atmospheric backdrop to his words, however the mention of burger king pushes a very ordinary idea in to our minds creating a disturbing contrast of thoughts. It raises the idea that something so sinister could be happening in somewhere so ordinary as a fast food restaurant. We then hear him say that someone has told them to get to Bruges and "wait for instructions" implying that the narrator works as a hit man for some mysterious character whom we no nothing about. Finally, after admitting to at the time not knowing where Bruges was the narrator states abruptly "it's in Belgium" ending the scene in a light hearted manner, readying us for the less sinister next scene.
The lighting, music and tone of voice used reflects the mood of the film generating an atmosphere which is familiar to both this movie and the genre which it is associated with.
Patrick - you need to analyse two further openings. You can use class analysis of Identity for one. Please get these posted asap.
ReplyDeleteYou write well but it would be useful if you started analysis with cloe description of shots and sound using terms: close up - long shot - high angle- low angle - panning - tracking and described connotations of these shots juxtaposed with sound.