Thriller Analysis

In my media class we watched three extracts from three different films analysing each extract. The first film that we watched was called Children of Men. The film starts with an enigma, the enigma is a question of why is a teenager of 18 is the youngest person on earth. I think that this question will be answered further on through the film. The environment is a very hostile environment because there is a random explosion right at the start. Just before the explosion our attention is focused on a guy that just brought a coffee so when the explosion takes place we are shocked because we are not expecting the explosion. The last part of the extract that we saw featured a women exiting the site of the explosion holding her own arm in her hand.

The next film that we watched was called memento. The films starts off with a killing which is being played in reverse. This is a strange but affective way of starting a film. The killing is played in reverse so that we take note of every part of it. The enigma of the movie is the main character or protagonist "Lenny" wants to find out what is happening. Lenny finds pictures of events in his pocket with one of a guy saying not to trust him and that he must kill him. Lenny follows the instructions of these pictures because it is in his own hand writing. Lenny suffers from amnesia and cannot remember any events from any previous day so must take pictures of everything so that he knows what he found out the day before. Once again this is an effective film and i look forward to watching the full film as i liked the extract. 

The last of the film extracts that my class viewed was called 'A history of violence'. This film started in a very peculiar way. It started in a very relaxed environment where two guys are talking by their cars. One guy enters a building for a few minutes and then exits. The other guy needs to refill their water canteen so enters the same building. This is when the camera follows him in. In the building we see a few dead bodies where the previous guy that entered the building had killed people. Upon filling the canteen a small girl comes to the second guy. (At this point we do not know their names). The second character pulls a gun calmly and shoots the little girl. The film seems to create a demented psychological theme. It may be in the genre of psychological thriller.

What a thriller needs.

After watching the extracts we were asked to write down some of things that we think need to be included in a thriller in order to be successful. Here are some of the ideas that i came up with.

• Mystery
• Suspense
• Violence
• A twist
• Crime
• Death
• A protagonist

I will be using most of these techniques when making my own thriller.