Analysing a Psycological Thriller...

Now is the time where we have to get thinking and planning about what sub- genre our thriller is going to be or what the story line will be about. So I have come up with an idea to do our film based on a pyscological genre. I came up with this idea after watching the title sequence of the film 'Memonto'. It was really thrilling and inspired me and I think it would be interesting and good to make our film with the ideas taken from this clip. Below is the title sequence....

 

Memento is a 2000 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia which renders his brain unable to store new memories. During the opening credits, which portrays the end of the story, it is shown that Leonard kills Teddy (Joe Pantoliano). The film suggests that this killing is in vengeance for the rape and murder of his wife (Jorja Fox) based on information provided by Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss).

I really liked the opening sequence to this film as it is based on a man who has a mental illness 'anterograde amnesia', and that alone makes the film thrilling... As you watch the title sequence, he has a photo in his hand in which he keeps shaking about, and as he keeps shaking them about different characters come into his mind (and also appear on the photo). This shows his illness as in reality, flippng a photo about will not change the faces that are on it! As different faces appear he hears voices of those characters in his head and the continuous flippng shows his urge to maybe get these voices out of his head... sounds like his going a bit crazy.... sounds thriling doesn't it!?

I also liked the way they used the titles to add to the thrilling mood. As the titles appeared on the screen they seemed to have a glowing effect as they faded in and out which added suspense! However, I think we would make our title sequence a narrative one where the titles run throughout the film rather than a dicrete one which Memento used. The sound track was also very good becasue it sounded like some sort of suspenseful melody which helped to create the mood of the title sequence.

This title sequence really inspired me. Maybe our film could be about someone who has a mental illness who's is going mad.... I really think my groups' film should be based on this genre, AND most importantly take some ideas from Memento!!