Thriller Film Openings Research

Overview:

For this part of my research I am going to be watching the film openings (first 5 minutes) of 3 thriller films. I am commenting on what happened as a reference for my future film opening. The films I will be watching are Woman of the Hour, The Weekend Away, and Subservience. 

Woman of the Hour: 

This film started off with an establishing shot showing the setting, it then cuts to a man taking photos of a woman. It shows us a POV shot at first only seeing the woman through the camera, I can hear the man's voice but not see him. For the first 3 minutes it is just dialogue using mid shots and over the shoulder shots. I get to hear a lot of the woman's backstory but nothing about the man, keeping him mysterious. During this dialogue I see a significant amount of space between them, but he starts to move closer to her as to comfort her. After closing the space he tries to attack her and we get a close up shot of the woman and you can see her start to realize she is in danger. And then a close up shot of the man and you can see his face turn serious. The five minutes then end with him attacking her and no longer being alive. This leaves me with confusion, suspense of what will happen next, and wanting to know more about the man. 

The Weekend Away:

This film starts of showing us the ocean then panning out showing a body floating in the water. It then uses an establishing shot to show a city. It then shows a close up on a woman showing her in the car, and it shows us POV shots of her looking out the window. The woman then engages in dialogue with the taxi driver and he gives her a a card for is she needs a taxi later on. This gave me a sense of foreshadowing. After talking with the taxi driver someone new is introduced it is the woman's friend and it is revealed they are staying together for the weekend. They engage in more dialogue with over the shoulder shots and the woman gives her friend a necklace. The five minutes end with the woman getting ready for dinner and calling her husband. This leaves me nervous for how their weekend will play out since it started with a body floating, it created tension making you wait for things to go wrong. 

Subservience:

This film starts with an establishing shot showing a snowy forest and extended to a city by the ocean. It then starts tracking a family in their car and shows the man having flashbacks of him and his wife. We then see the wife crying in pain and clenching her chest. It then cuts back to the man with his children but not with the wife making me think something happened to her. It then shows the man taking his kids through what seems like a mall, where he engages in dialogue with an employee that then introduces him to a robot that runs on AI. We then switch to tracking the young girl and we see a bunch of the robots in different home settings. The man then comes to find his daughter and she is brought over by one of the female robots. The robot, man, and employee then begin some more dialogue in which the employee explain that she is a newer model that mimics human emotion. The five minutes end with the daughter asking to keep the robot. This leaves me a little worried about the mimicking of human emotions and I wonder how the rest will play out.