Analysis of Modern Thriller Opening

Memento


This film has an extremely difficult narrative structure where events are told in 10 minutes segments but backwards. This echoes the confusion that the main character feels as he struggles to remember events. The opening scene was very disturbing because the first thing you will see is the picture of the wall covered with blood and the next you will see you is that the man is shaking the picture and the picture just carries on fading away as the more he is shaking the picture. The background music is very sad as its to show the event which just happened was an accident and someone who was not meant to die died.

Brick


This film opening scene is weird as a little kid is sitting in a sewage pathway looking into the tunnel as if he is waiting for someone to come out. The opening of "Brick" starts with non-diegetic western music, which feels a bit weird. The sound is almost trickled into the film but the transition is a little off putting. This is followed by a pot to a close up of shoes which again is a little bit of an odd way to start, it gives the audience very little information about what is going on and makes the audience question why they are being shown shoes. This then transitions to a close up of a face which then cuts to the view of a tunnel where we can see that the face and the shoes belong to a boy and the boy is crouched looking over at the dead body of a woman. He appears to be quite fascinated by the dead body which is really creepy. This is then emphasized by the western music that is still playing in the background. However the fact that the boy is looking at the woman in this way, and the way that he is positioned on the other side of the tunnel crouched makes the audience curious as to whether he killed this person.