Hitman Opening Scene review

This film opening begins with short shots showing a young male getting a tattoo of a barcode on the back of his shaved head. This then follows with shots containing different stages of some kind of training facility for children. It is all in black and white and has a dream like effect, hinting that it is possibly a flashback of someone’s or even just a way of showing the past or historical piece of narrative to start the film. The film title appears and you can clearly see the guns within the title, iconography suggests that this film has murder and action in it. There is no diegetic sound, however over this sequence there is the non-diagetic music of Ave Maria, a catholic prayer, which contradicts the visuals the viewer is seeing of children being put through unethical situations. This helps to creates interest in the film, the enigma code of where are these children and why are they doing these things is present.
To help emphasize that these are memories the shots a transitioned with the heavy use of fading, shots often fading seamlessly in and out of focus. This may show that the memories are weak and not all aspects are remembered, except for the most severe parts. There is one section where it appears that two of the children are trying to escape, the presence of barbed wire and fencing add to the mise-en-scene, it portrays that the children do not want to be there. A unknown character then shoots them for trying to escape, however all we see of this person is their eye, signifying how these characters are always being watched over.
With everything being in black and white and all the characters having no hair shows that they are in a very strict setting, where they must conform. What looks like the older characters, who are telling the children what to do, are faceless, and so this conveys that the whole organization is undercover and that those responsible are not to be seen. The introduction of guns shows that this film has violence in it and raises many questions about the narrative, the presence of only males within the film opening will also help identify genre and that this is a male oriented film.