Analysis of openings of Thriller films - Flightplan.

Film - Flightplan

Year - 2005

Director - Brian Grazer

Flightplan was directed by Brain Grazer in 2005, it follows a mother played by Jodie Foster and her young daughter of whom have lost their father/husband, who live in Berlin and are going to visit the mothers parents in America. the film is mainly set on the plane going to america and how her daughter has disappeared from the plane however no-one ever recalls seeing her or her being registered on that flight.

In the opening to Flightplan the first thing we see is a black screen with the fliashing light of a tube, which creates a feeling a panic and hectic-ness to us. The first we see of the main character, Kyle is a full length shot of the back of her, which creates a sense of mystery for the audience. The film starts off in Germany,berlin, we can tell this at the train station in the opening; by the language that was being spoken and from the signs around her. The backgrouns music starts off as soft piano music in the background however this then changes to be quite loud and harsh, which ties in with the sound of crowes which apears in the background, the crowes create a sense of horror and evil, which leads us to believe that something sinister is going to happen later on in the film.

The director uses a wide range of shots to create different illusions and feels to the film for example: when the mother and daughter are coming out of the house at night to go to the airport, he uses an extreme long shot of them both, they are both wearing black clothes and the setting is on a very cold wintery dark night, all of these elements that have been used create a dark and sad feel for the audience, the use of black across the whole picture relates to a funeral and the image of death. The dark clothing contrasts with the bright white snow outside, this could show the good and evil side of the characters. The director also uses a close up shot and hold this hot of their luggage, the director also uses a close up shot of the mothers wedding ring, which obviously signifies that she is married and at this stage in the film makes us wonder where her husband is, later for us to find out he had died a few days previosuly.

In the film, when the air hostess is counting the amount of people on board the plane, the daughter Julia is hiding underneath the seat which means she is not counted so when she later goes missing and her mother, Kyle ,reports it because she had not been counted the air hostess`s try to dismiss the disaperance of Julia. The air hostess also tried to make Kyle believe that Julia had never boarded the flight. The director uses flash backs to show what had happened prior to Julias disappearance, however it does not give us any clue to how or why Julia disappeared.

The director creates suspense when Julia has gone mising, by using cloe up shots on peoples faces, he also portrays one air-hostess to be more concerned than the others this leads us to believe that perhaps the lady either has children of her own or has experienced this before. The director creates more suspense by making the other characters on the plane seem very unwilling to help, i think he may have portrayed the characters as unwilling to create a sense of anger towards these people. The Director uses Kyles husbands death to create a sense of sensitivity and reality towards Kyle, this also creates even more suspense becuase she has already lost her husband, so it would mkae it even harded for her then to loose her only child, the death ofher husband would also make her feel very upset and uneasy, this sense of feelinf uneasy was shown in the first scene.

As the audience we are made to guess what has happened to Julia and one guess that i made and the director lead me to believe was that perhaps Julia had felt very upset and disturbed by her fathers recent death, also becuase of the strain that would have caused julia she may be feeling very vunerable, this leads us to believe she may have been kidnapped. we are shown the vunerability of Julia in the first scene when her mother hides her underneath her coat when they are walking to the taxi.