Somerset’s apartment is very neat and tidy, showing that he’s organised to the point of borderline obsessive compulsive. He picks the fluff off of his jacket before putting it on, showing that everything has to be exactly how he wants it, as a way of rooting himself back to reality since he doesn’t know what kinds of horrific murders he will have to deal with every day.
Blood is used at the crime scene to show the audience what has happened there, since we don’t see the dead body in great detail. We can imagine what has happened due to the blood being splattered on the windows and therefore we can sympathise with Somerset as he’s a fairly normal person that has to cope with the horrors of murder and he seems to be coping quite well.
He’s dressed neatly, unlike Detective Mills who is wearing a black leather jacket and is unshaven, which connotes a rebellious lifestyle. The city itself is dark and dingy, rain is falling and it looks quite seedy and stereotypically somewhere where a lot of crime would take place.
The title sequence starts of with a book and the shadow of hand turning pages, which feels ominous and sinister. The grungy letters for the credits add atmosphere and a feeling of disorder. Disturbing images are used to create an idea of the genre and the topics that will be covered in the audience’s mind. We see masculine hands, showing that this enigmatic and slightly disturbed person is a man. Bandaged fingers make the viewer question what caused the injuries and then a few seconds later, it is answered, which leads to the question of why he’s shaving his fingertips off.
Clearly he does not want to be identified, so the audience assumes these are the hands of an antagonist, a criminal who is perhaps the person behind the horrible images seen in the opening sequence. Also, we see his hands preparing tea, which is an everyday occurrence and nothing out of the ordinary, suggesting he is not disturbed by the images he is looking at and that it’s part of his every day routine.
During the title sequence, creepy, disconcerting music is playing which provides the audience with a sense of foreboding. The music has a heavy pulse through it making it dramatic and building up suspense. At the end of the title sequence the singer sings about being ‘closer to God’, suggesting religion will be an important aspect of the film. Also, it sounds like a radio is being tuned, which is a sound that sets the viewer on edge, as it is quite disconcerting and unappealing to the ear. Without the soundtrack, the title sequence doesn’t have quite the same effect. It is still intriguing and slightly confusing but not as creepy and scary as when the music is playing over the top.
The unnamed officer’s dialogue shows that Somerset is not respected in the workplace and that they see him as a nuisance, as he says that he can’t wait for him to retire, when all he did was ask whether the murder victims child saw the murder. There is no music in the scene, so we can hear the sounds of the city, where he lives. Somerset tries to block out the sounds with a metronome, the steady rhythm something that keeps him in touch with reality, but we can still hear the sirens over the top so we know there’s no getting away from the terrors outside for Detective Somerset.
The film starts off slowly, as we watch Somerset get ready for the day ahead of him, shot with elliptical editing, showing he is in no rush to get to work but also focusing on every little detail of what he does, just like he would do. Then, we cut to him being at the crime scene, showing there’s not much else to his life other than work and it also keeps him mysterious, as we’re not introduced to every aspect of his life right away.
The title sequence uses jumpcuts to add a jerky, unsettling feel to the movie, as the short shots of the dissecting of books and pictures jump from one part to the other, such as when the camera focuses on the pen drawing a black line across the eyes of a boy in a picture. It then cuts to the shot of the whole face with lines all over it, suggesting this person had been eradicated.
The camera focuses solely on the objects the antagonist is looking at and not on anything around it, which makes the audience really look and take in what is being shown in the title sequence.
Scratches and scratchy letters are placed over the title sequence in random places to give it a grungy, grimy feel, reflecting urban society. But the letters are quite difficult to really spot when watching the clip all the way through and the audience doesn’t quite realise they’re seeing it, even though they still register it in their minds, like subliminal messaging.
As we are introduced to Detective Somerset, we learn that he has a routine and is very organized. We also learn that he is an outsider, as another Detective mentions how he is looking forward to when he leaves the force. He seems sensitive as he asks whether or not the child witnessed the murder, obviously caring about the child’s state of mind. This question angers the other detective and shows that they don’t fit well together. We feel sympathy for Somerset as he is a seemingly sensitive and well-mannered person, but is also an underdog in the workplace and has to deal with seeing death every day.
Then, we meet Detective Mills, who is the binary opposite of Somerset, as he is cocky and short-tempered and a little bit naïve as he’s come from a small town and hasn’t really experienced life in the big city.
Themes are introduced in the opening sequence, such as murder and villainy, but also how relationships between people that wouldn’t chose to work together work out and religion since there is a focus on the word ‘God’ being removed from a dollar note.
Enigma is established in different ways in the opening sequence. The audience doesn’t know where this is taking place, the city they live in is undefined and we only know that it is an urban area in America. We see blood in the murder scene but we don’t know what exactly has happened. For the duration of the title sequence, we just see a man’s bandaged hands cutting bits out of books, scribbling over the faces and sticking highly macabre and disturbing photos down while doing something as mundane as making himself a cup of tea, which somehow makes it slightly more disturbing because it seems that this is what he does everyday. So it makes the audience intrigued as to what this person does with their life and who they are.
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