The Machinist Film Opening

The Machinist Film Opening

This appears to be a psychological thriller because of the many different shots used which although he should be seen as a murderer, we look at him as a victim. 

 This opening is very confusing due to the fact that although the main character appears to have killed someone as he is in the process of rolling the body up in a rug. The audience are positioned in such a way that we are made to feel sorry for him as he struggles to carry the body. The close-ups of his facial expressions also make us feel sympathy towards him as he shows a great deal of confusion and regret in his eyes as we see him through reflection of a window and mirror. Also, he looks as if he has been in a fight due to the marks on his face. This also makes us wonder what happened and we start to feel sorry for him as it could have just been self-defence.


 As he lifts the body to the river, we are once more made to feel as if he is the victim as there could have been a struggle which led to an accidental death. This makesthe audience feel more sympathy towards him as there is a possiblility he isn't the villain here.




When he sees a light coming towards him, he panics about dumping the body in time. We feel like he is the victim when the light gets closer showing us another close-up of his reaction to the person whom he appears to know.

We see a close-up of the light that was used on a table at his house as he washes his hands thoroughly which suggests that he has possibly killed the person and taken the torch with him to hide any evidence. This contradicts that victim sense as the audience are positioned differently here as the same object has been shown again and the type of shot used makes the audience realise that something significant must have happened in relation to the torch.

 

 

The image of the sticker on the wall raises a lot of questions about how it got there? Was it there before? Did he put it there? Is someone watching him?

It makes the audience curious as to what his reaction will be and could just be seen as a psychological sign of him asking himself who he is.

At the end of the clip we are shown exactly how skinny he is and it is mentioned by the woman he has just slept with whom he seems to know fairly well considering it has been implied that she is a prosititute as she tells him he still has half an hour and then he places money into a glass bowl. All of this gives the audience mixed messages about what kind of a character he is because although he is shown to be sleeping with a prostitute, they seem fairly close which could be due to his lonliness which again makes us feel sympathy towards him as if he is the innocent party in this film.