Mr Brooks

The opening sequence of Mr Brooks is very interesting. We first see a black screen with white writing appearing slowly in three lines. The writing is very ambiguous, "The hunger has returned to Mr Brooks' brain. It never really left." This statements are very enigmatic as they raise questions in the mind of the audience, what type of hunger are we talking about? Who is Mr Brooks? Where has it been if it never really left? We don't really understand what it means right now which causes us to think that we are going to find out the meaning as we watch the film.

As the opening credits continue to play on the black screen, we here the voice over of two men. One seems to be praying whilst the other is talking back to him. We wonder who the voices belong to and we try and determine the significance of what they are saying. The first shot we see is a low angle long shot of a man bending over looking into a mirror. In the foreground we see a small cupboard with flowers on top whilst the man is in the background. We assume that he was the one previosuly speaking but as we can't see a second man we doubt our first judgement. The man then leans up to face the camers which gives the audience the opportunity to see his face. He walks towards the camera, whose position doesn't change. The next shot is of a wine glass filled with wine as the camera pans across. We start to hear again the previous man's voice praying again. The audience really want to know now who the voice belongs to and why he is praying. The first wine glass blurs in the foreground as the camera moves to show another wine glass in the foreground of the bottom of half of a man's face. The camera pans up to show his face which becomes clearer and the audience determines that he is the man from the bathroom. His mouth isn't moving so we assume that we are hearing his thoughts as a voice over.

I find this opening very interesting as it leaves the audience guessing and makes them want to watch the film and find out what is going on. We are introduced to the main character, the killer, but we don't know that yet, we have also heard his alter-ego but we don't know that yet either. I would like to use this kind of opening in our thriller as it is very enigmatic, causing the audience to want to watch on to have their questions answered or to see if their original assumptions were right.