Explore How your chosen films opening sequence introduces key themes of our chosen films. (35)

Explore How your chosen films opening sequence introduces key themes of our chosen films.

Kassovitz is manipulating the audience to divide the Police, Paris and the ‘Cite’ with a combination of conscious and subconscious techniques.

The non diegetic music over the whole sequence is a song by Bob Marley called ‘Burnin and lootin’. The title alone describes a key theme in the film, burning. This is apparent in Vinzes narration at the end of the opening where he talks about a world erupting in flames. The significance of Bob Marley as an activist of human rights is also apparent for the themes displayed throughout the film of police brutality because of someone’s ethnic background and how France is represented in the film. The first line, “This morning I woke up in a curfew”, relates directly two the film in two ways. The first is the structure of the film, it is set over a period of 17 hours, and both the song and the film start off in the morning, and progress on. And the second way is the part of waking up in a curfew. A curfew is having to be inside at a certain time, and waking up in a curfew is like being in solitary confinement in a prison. You no say in what you do, and are told what to do constantly, right from waking up in the morning, until going to bed. It gives the feel of entrapment and makes the divide between the population of the Cite’s and the Police similar to that between prisoners and the guards in a prison, and this reflects exactly how the Police treat the people who live in the Projects. In the next line he even refers to himself as a prisoner! The lyrics read “They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality”. This runs parallel with how the Police are represented in the film, as brutal, destructive and the enemies of the people we are forced to reason with, the people in the Projects. The music is so overpowering in the sequence that you are forced to listen to it, you are injected with the lyrics, and you are forced to link it with the visual element of the sequence. Uniforms of brutality, police. Burning and looting, rioters, closing your eyes and watching it still gives you the main themes of the movie.

Visually, you are lied to by Kassovitz through the structure of the sequence. Initially he shows the protestors dancing, harmless and peacefully. Then he shows the police making the first move brutally and unnecessarily, and then the protestors turn to rioting in retaliation of the police. Although in this exaggerated sense, it is not true. We must remember the film is from the point of view of Kassovitz, and the reason for the mass riots was society snapping because of police brutality on a young black teen. Kassovitz uses a realistic framework along with actual riot footage to try and show the film as a real, reflection of life in ‘Paris’, making it more like a documentary, this is also an apparent theme in the film as the camera is mostly following the 3 main protagonists around throughout their day.

WHAT I WOULD SAY:

-       Constantly see police as antagonists

-       “Dedicated to the people who died making this film.” Making out like people died working on the film, further creating a realistic framework.