We Need to Talk about Kevin



The film begins with an establishing shot of a room, the room mostly consists of dark colours apart from a single window which is very light. This draws the audiences attention to it. The curtains move slowly because of the breeze, this creates a very calm atmosphere which contrasts to the genre. The camera movements are slow and smooth furthering the calm atmosphere. There aren't any transitions in this scene meaning that everything is very slow. The sounds are quiet and repetitive to add to this calm atmosphere, It is all very quiet. This is effective because it leads the audience to believe that something is going to suddenly break the quiet atmosphere so it adds tension. At the end it fades out to a white screen keeping the tranquil atmosphere. The decor of the room is also very typical to the average home meaning that the scene has a very familiar, comfortable feel. This also builds enigma as it makes the audience wonder what is behind that curtain as the high key lighting suggests that it is hiding something important.

This second part hugely contrasts to the beginning. This is effective because it makes the scene change more dramatic. The calm fade to white is contrasted with a quick cut. In this a lot of people are throwing tomatoes at each other, this reminds the audience of blood and makes an innocent scene look quite gory. It also hints at disaster and danger which keeps the audience in suspense.The sounds also contrasts as it is diegetic loud screaming in comparison to the quiet sounds before. The fact that the people are screaming make their facial expressions seem as though they are in pain, this hints to the chaos that is to come. To further this the mass of people is uncontrolled and raging. This makes the audience fear that someone is going to get hurt. The red tomatoes connotations of blood also suggest the thriller genre.
The way that they clamber over each other makes them seem like animals. This suggests that they are out of control and can cause huge damage. This puts the audience in suspense as they know that something could go wrong at any time.

The wave of people seems almost endless, this suggests to the audience that there could be an endless amount of violence. It also builds enigma as there are many suggestions to violence but there have not yet been any clues as to how it connects with the story, this leaves the audience wanting to know what's ahead.

The bucket of tomatoes looks like a bucket full of blood, the way that they are pouring it out suggests that they have little to no respect for the human life. This makes the audience wonder what is going to happen as the opening furthers the idea of people being out of control and chaotic.

Narrative
The opening doesn't give much away to the plot line of the film as it ends up being a dream. It starts with an equilibrium so that does fit Todorov's theory. It doesn't have an important part in the story but it opens the plot.

Audience
The age rating is a 15,  this means that it is a suitable age for out target audience as they would all legally be able to watch it. This means that the content is appropriate and it is the kind of content we can include in our film.

Evaluation
I like the contrast as I think that it makes what wuld otherwise be an innocent scene quite dramatic and shocking. I would like to use a contrast like that in my film. I also like the way that they used tomatoes to connote blood. I think this would be good to use for my movie as gore is more of a feature of horror but tomatoes hint at chaos and blood without going into too much of a horror genre. However, I don't like the way that they didn't give much of the plot line away as the opening is a good way to give people a feel of the rest of the film. I therefore think that I would like to include some hints to the rest of the story in my opening.