The Cleaner (2007) Opening Analysis

The first thing I noticed about this opening was the intense music that starts at the beginning. This piece of music is a suspense building and similar music is commonly used in films to indicate the build up to events. Hearing this music tells me that the film is going to be a thriller and mystery genre film, it also makes me assume that there may have been a murder/death and that this is going to be an issue throughout the whole film. The music alone provides much information about the film within the first 10 seconds without having actually seen anything on the screen yet. 

The first image shown is an arial shot of a city and then a few shots of a woman approaching and entering an apartment block, this sets the scene. Then a voice over begins from actor Samuel Jackson which suggests he is the main character and we are going to see events through his eyes and opinions. The voice over itself tells the audience a story of a woman visiting her mother (the woman that entered the apartments) and finds her dead. He then tells us that it is up to the bereaved to clean up the mess that a death may have caused and that his job is a professional cleaner specifically for death. During this voice over we see the woman discover her mothers body and see it being taken away to an autopsy. 

After this the song 'Tell me something good' by Chaka Khan begins and this specific song contrasts with the melancholic theme of death that is being presented. Visuals are shown of the mothers funeral and Samuel Jackson's character preparing to clean up the mess while his voice over continues in which he explains the process of cleaning death scenes. After this the action cuts to a new scene where the assumed protagonist is talking to a group of people telling them what we've just heard in the voice over. One of the women he speaks to calls him 'Tom'. His name and his profession are the only details revealed about him during this opening and this suggests he is recluse and contained.

The dim and pale lighting at the beginning of the opening links with the issues being dealt with and contributes to the quite low atmosphere. The cutting of action is slick and well-done and this makes the opening sequence run smoothly and look good. I also thought that the framing used was very good because it showed the audience what was happening without showing us everything, for example, at 1 minute 3 seconds we can see the woman is dead however we do not see her full body, this add to the suspense along with the music. The actual credits themselves appear throughout this opening and are presented in a quite simple form that they do not take the attention away from the visuals that are being shown on the screen.