Eastern Promises

Just saw this on Sunday, and thought it was a really good thriller as it was unusual in style. For one, this is a gangster film where a mobster isn't actually the central protagonist, a midwife is. This I think is interesting as we are kind of seeing the criminal organisation from an outside perspective.

I also think the beginning was very effective and I can learn a lot from it, when I begin to plan my own opening. The Film opened with the title and the directeor credit come up in white block font on a black screen. We then see a location shot of a busy street in London and the camera moves to focus on a adolescent running into a barber shop and pulling the blinds down. Immediately as the audience we are asking many questions. For instance why is he running inside? Is he being followed? Or is it just because of the bad weather?. Also why does he pull the blind down and put the closed sign up when there is still a customer being served inside?

We now see the Barber (the father of the adolescent) and the customer in the chair as they talk quite cheerfully about life in general. Therefore it is a shock when all of a sudden the Barber gives his son a cut throat razor and tells him to kill the person in the chair. All of a sudden we are plunged into violence and the audience is gripped due to the immediacy of this act.

Maybe for the opening of my thriller I could use similar shock tactics in order to get the interest of my audience. I also think how the audience are left asking so many questions is also really interesting. In my opening I might try to replicate the same effect of sudden acts of violence or emotion to shock the audience.

The titles I also think were really effective as they were short and so did not bore the audience. As well as this the fact they were stuck on a blank canvas, rather than actually onto any moving image also made them more prominent, and so you were more likely to remember the title and director of the film.