How does the opening of ‘City of God’ set the tone, genre and themes of the film through the use of micro-elements?
In the opening scene
creates a tense and aggressive atmosphere through fast pace editing. This
creates the action genre. As the opening scene quickly switches between shots
of the chicken looking scared and people having fun, it builds up the tension
and puts the audience on edge the use of non-diegetic sounds of the knife being
sharpened creates suspense. The use of imagery and sound effects warns the
audience on what to expect. The speed at which the shots are edited together
can represent the characters way of life. It suggests that the characters
always have to be moving fast and thinking quickly. It also shows that their
way of life is very frantic. This way of life creates tension and aggression as
it shows two opposing forces in a battle. The way the two opposing forces are
shown as being very violent towards each other. At the end of this opening
scene the audience are left with a feeling that the characters are going to be
constantly in danger from the two forces.
