Brick (Johnson, 2005 USA)

When watching Brick, the first thing the audience is made aware of is the music, which is low and disturbing. Instruments that are heard sound like a xylophone and maybe a bell. Then the image fades on and we track to a close up of a person’s shoes, they are worn and scruffy looking and will be easy to distinguish our character later on. We can also tell that they are male. There is then a slow dissolve/cross fade to an extreme close up of his face. This slow dissolve/cross fade shows the passing of time, and makes it seem like he has been crouching there for ages, even though we don’t know why yet. A close up of his face lets us take in his features in detail and lets up get a bit more information about the person who is clearly the main character. From this, we see that he is young with glasses, and he is focused on something that we, the audience, can’t see.

We then cut to an establishing shot, and we get much more information. Firstly, we establish the setting and see that they are in a flood drain. We also see a body, lying by the river, which we presume is dead. The lighting in this shot is very atmospheric, as we see the bright sunlight at the top of the screen, which highly contrasts the darkness that we see in the flood drain. This makes it seem even more eerie that he is staring at, what we assume, is a dead body, because at this point we want to know; who he is? Who she is? Has he killed her? Or did he find her? And why has he been sitting there staring at her for so long? Why does he not get help? And how is it that she died?

We then cut to three consecutive close ups of the women. We see he legs, shoes and her dress, both of which are dirty and wet from the river, making us assume this was a violent death. We then cut to a close up of her face, but we cannot clearly see her as her hair is covering it. Her identity is hidden from us so that we ask more questions about who she is. Her hair is floating in the water, and looks lifeless, which reinforces the idea that she is dead and the fats moving river contrasts her still body.

The camera then zooms into her hand and the camera spends more time on this close up shot than it has on the others, so we know this is significant. The camera zooms in so that we see clearly notice the bracelets on her hand. We then presume a flashback occurs as the bracelets remain but the setting changes, and the owner of the bracelets is now alive. There is also a change in sound as the quiet of the river changes to a busy school with a school bell in the background. We then see another close up of the shoes walking, letting us know that the two characters are obviously connected, not just total strangers, which makes us more suspicious of how she died, and how he was involved, as we have very little information about them so far.