The main character in the film is Mr Parish (Robin Williams) in the opening scene we see him in a police station, this does not seem to be where he would normally spend any of his time. He seems like a normal innocent fairly old man with a normal job. There seem to be a link with photos even in the first few seconds of the opening. The title is the first give away that the film will include some links to photography however we do not know how. We see that the detective has some of Mr Parish's photo's in an envelope, we would assume this is being used as evidence in the case. Mr Parish asks if he can see the photo's which the detective has, this is rather abnormal because you would not expect a suspect to look at what we assume to be police evidence therefore Mr Parish already seems to be a bit quirky.
Mr Parish also appears to not fully understand why he is in the police station, it appears that he has been put into custody. It seems although he is quite child-like in the way he acts, he asks to see the photo's he is hesitant when he is asked to turn left when having his photo taken. However this could all be down to nerves, maybe he is innocent and he has not done anything wrong. He is a sweet old man that is just living life and he has been wrongly taken into custody. We cannot tell which one of these ideas it is because we do not have enough information at this point to what is going on.
After we have been introduced to Mr Parish we then go to a family, a mother, a farther and a son. At first when we see them they are a normal family, the mother is going to go out shopping with the son while the farther is at home working. This is rather stereotypical actually. There is a slight twist when the farther says he is not going to be able to go shopping with them, it almost seems like he doesn't have a lot of time for his son or even his wife. The son does not seem too bothered that his farther cannot come though, maybe he is used to it if he does it a lot.
The family then head to the shopping centre, this is where the paths of the two character intertwine. We find out that Mr Parish has done this families photos for about 8 years, so he does know them quite well. When he is talking to the mother he seems to be acting over polite to them, he come out from the back especially to talk to them. This is where we see Mr Parish's creepy side, even though he may come across as a bit creepy and over nice does there appear to be a crime? No there does not, strangely we cannot tell from this why he is in a police station, he seems to be fairly normal and not like he would do anything to harm anyone. So at the end of the opening they leave us with some mystery. We want to find out what he has done and this is how they draw us in.
I think this is a very good opening scene, nothing very interesting happens in it but that's what makes it so good. They build tension and leave us asking the questions, they leave us to think about what could happen and therefore it makes us think about what could happen. It seems like there will be a plot twist at some point in the movie because of this however we just do not know.
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