film opening analysis of Momento

During this lesson we viewed the first 5-10 minutes of four different films; momento, children of men, a history of violence and collateral. We then wrote notes on the extract, what makes it a thriller and what makes the audience want to carry on watching.

The first film we looked at was Momento. Throughout the beginning of  Momento the lengh and speed of the edits was changed very effectively, starting off slow, thenn speeding up and finally ending slow again. The dark shadows made the scene look as though it was a bad place furthermore, the fact that it was a crime scene also reflects this too. This is because it is explaining the story backwards which is not the normsal route taken for the opening to a film. This is effective as it keeps the audience watching as they want to know more about what is happening, why and what has previously happened.

Throughout this extract there is a great use of an enigma, this is as the man in the scene has killed a man, which makes the audience want to seek to solve how this has happened.