Manu Bhalla - Conventions and Media Language of a Thriller (Taken)

Taken, 2008, is a Thriller film, which is about a retired CIA agent, which travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who was kidnapped on a trip to Paris to be sold into prostitution.

The opening scene to Taken shows a blurred scene, with shots of a young girl and her mother in a room. This blurred scene has typical soft sad music, which goes along with the scene, to make it have an effect on the audience, as it would seem to them that there is an enigma of why this scene is being shown with the dramatic tune in the background.

The sounds of the two characters in the scene become echoed as a sound also plays part in the scene, which describes the scene being faded. The father wakes up in the dark realising he was thinking about an earlier time, a time of which had been a happy moment for him. He wakes up to a dark room with a silent house, making the audience realise that he no longer lives with the two characters, which he did before. The Mise-en-scene plays part on the father waking up to a dark room, as the lighting and location of that scene fit the situation. The clothing of Lee Nelsons character shows him as a typical father, dressed casually with a sweater and trousers.

The sad tune carries on to play as Lee Nelson (The father) wakes up and with a sad lonely face, holding a picture of his daughter.

Using smart effects to make the Lee Nelson snap out of the flashback has the effect on the audience as the enigma continues. The camera shots show Lee Nelson in a close-up, so they realise the facial expression and focus on what he's doing, which in this case was dreaming about an earlier time. The editing cuts the next shot to a wide shot to show his surroundings and where he is, so the audience begins to realise why he is dreaming about that time. The editing again cuts to another close-up to Lee Nelson to focus on his facial expression, and show he has the photo of his daughter in his hands, missing her and putting the picture back on the table, with slight sounds of crickets in the background to emphasise how silent it is.

The enigma seems to begin to be clear to the audience, as when the flashbacks in the opening scene were shown, it was the daughters 5^th birthday, and the next day it was her 17^th birthday, making the vision clear to the audience, as it showed how Lee Nelson feels, which were to do with his daughter growing up so quickly. All the enigmas used in the opening scene are made to string together to make the scene clear for the audience.