Film opening analysis

Snatch:

The opening sequences of films are important in determining and putting across what the film itself is going to consist of, these things include factors such as what Genre type of genre the film may take place in; Romatic, comedy, crime, horror, science fiction and more. It can also establish setting and character. In this essay I am going to analyse how the opening sequence to the film of snatch uses many different filming techniques in order to identify the films theme, genre, the basic style of the film, what characters the film may be based around and also what this sequence makes the viewer expect from the film itself.
When the film first begins we see a set of credits, white on black is the format of these credits, this colouring instantly sets the film with an enigmatic feel to it, we usually associate mystery with the colours black and white because they are bold and basic and we don’t get much connotation from the colours themselves, just like mystery. We then hear a non-diagetic voice over of a man talking to the viewer. The man is talking about diamonds, now diamonds are something associated the rich and powerful and bearing in mind that the man is talking in a low cockney voice, and his speech isn’t what you would call ‘proper English’ we automatically assume that he isn’t talking about how he has lots of diamonds. Therefore he is more likely to be talking about how to obtain them, and this instantly puts the film into possibly the genre of adventure and mystery. The fact that there is a voice over of a man speaking suggests that he could be one of the men in the room in which the camera focus’s on, or this character whom I speaking may initially play quite an important role throughout the film.
The film begins in a dark room with two men sitting down, the room is dark and grey, the setting here creates a sense of enigma, therefore the film begins with a feel of mystery, again establishing this genre of mystery and adventure, not only does the setting play apart in establishing this enigmatic feel but we also don’t know why the men are sat there, again associating the film snatch with this theme of possible enigma as the setting is already making the viewer ask questions. The beginning of the opening sequence when the men are sat in this room is extremely slow paced. There are not many cuts or transitions; just two men sat in a room whilst the voice over is talking. The voice over at the end of this scene asks a question: ‘ What do I know about diamonds?’ and the viewer instantly gets a feel of what the film is about.
The camera then cuts, after the voice over asks how to obtain diamonds, the camera cuts so a close up view of some security cameras, it focus’s in on one particular cameral in which we can see clearly that it is tracking some Jewish men, cultural Jewish background music also starts playing at this point. This is used in order to make it obvious to the audience what kind of people these men are suppose to be, the camera then tilts down to another security camera in which shows the men walking into the office. The fact that the camera is looking through a security camera at the Jewish men straight away connotes that these men are up to no good. Acton then establishes this because they start to fight, connoting that the Jewish men are violent.
The camera cuts then to the same Jewish men, sitting on a train, and the camera uses a medium two shot of two men taking off there masks, telling the viewer instantly that these men are fraudsters. Dressing up in disguise in order to obtain and thieve. The Jewish music also stops playing at this point in which tells us that in fact these men are not Jewish. The camera then zooms in to a close up of a diamond, in which they themselves have just stolen, therefore this film suggesting is definitely about how to acquire diamonds as the man is happy with his accomplishment. The camera goes into a transition with the diamond spinning, the non-diagetic background sound suddenly cuts in to fast pace music, introducing each character, we see a medium shot of each character along with the fast pace music, and the denotation of the characters with what they are wearing and look like, suggests to the viewer that all of these men are in disguise, just like the Jewish men were when the were stealing the diamond, and because the Jewish men were in disguise we therefore know that they are all in the diamond industry, well not exactly, they all partake in thieving of diamonds and after this introduction it is blatant and definite that this is what the film will be based on.