Thursday, 6 October 2016

'The Mechanic' Analysis: Opening 2 Minutes


The first part of the scene - the close-up of the watch - helps the audience to see the wealth of the supposed antagonist. The establishing shot of the inside of the house and pool show us this also. This man is supposed to be the one the audience do not like and do not warm to. The mysterious sound motif when he puts the watch down also hints at this negative feeling towards the antagonist. The sound gets blurred as he goes into the water, making it sound as if the audience are underwater too. The struggle he faces whilst underwater is enhanced with the shaky camera actions and the louder sounds of the men to make the audience feel like they are there in the scene. 

We cut from the struggle underwater to the seemingly peaceful contrast out of the pool in the house and back again, creating a shot reverse shot with contrasting atmospheres to keep the audience enthralled. The dangerous sounding non-diegetic music adds to the tension during this part of the scene. We then cut from a close-up of the antagonist floating away to a medium shot of the protagonist changing. This is a convention of action films. The close-ups of his angry face and the prevalence he is given shows the audience who the film is based around and who to focus on. 

The audience can see the comparison of the two men. The protagonist is shown to be muscular and emotionally distant whereas the antagonist is shown to be scrawny, much weaker and physically unable to fight back. These are both conventions of action films which the opening conforms to. Another convention is the slow-motion jump at the end. It slows the pace of the film down where it was previously quite fast paced as we cut from location to location in the house. The long shot of the classic jump on to the boat is dramatised with the slow motion, to create more tension in the scene before leaving it on a cliffhanger in the opening titles. 

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