analysis of arlington road opening.

Arlington Road was made in 1999, it is a film that sits in the 'thriller' genre. The movie starts with an unfocussed image of a young boy walking along the road on his own,
his vision slightly disorientated, the camera blurring establishing shots. The camera cuts back and forth between shots of parts of his body like his feet, and then the back of his head, creating a sense of unknowing, the audience don't know what has happened or why he is walking like he is. The camera the cuts to a shot of his face, he looks delusional and like he is about to collapse, showing that something is actually wrong.
During the sequence of distorted shots, you can hear talking in the background. Whether this is diegetic or nondiegetic sound is not made clear in the first 2 minutes of the film. We are then shown an unfocussed midshot of the boy, which shows us that the boy is injured. This creates enigma codes such as 'why is the boy injured?' and 'where is he going?'. The camera edits then speed up, giving the audience a sense of disorientation. The camera reverts to a shot of his feet as he is walking, and then blood starts to drip from his wound showing that he really is hurt. A cut is used to show a car that is driving along the same road as the child is walking along, and the camera keeps switching between the child and driver to show a connection between the two. You can see the small child unfocussed in the windscreen of the car, and this creates suspense as you don't know what is going to happen. Suspense is a common convention of a thriller movie. The car then stops and the man gets out to go and see to the child, he then runs to him and turns him around, the young childs hand is burnt and parts are missing, creating another enigma code... 'what happened to him?'

This opening is typically a thriller, as there is very little dialogue and the filming is very abstract, for example the edits.