Passchendaele opening scene analysis

Not very much is revealed about the characters in the opening scene. This is because all of them but the sergeant are killed the this opening scene. Not much is revealed about the sergeant ether, apart from that he is a Canadian soldier and the fact that he just wants to make sure that his men survive. An example of this is when he tries to surrender himself and the one surviving private to save the wounded soldiers. 

From the opening we do not find out much about the plot of the film other than it is set in world war one, during the battle of Passchendaele. However from that fact that the the opening is mostly focusing on the sergeant (using close ups and camera tracking) we can guess that the film is based on his story. The title is placed at the beginning of the scene, just before it fades to a close up shot of the sergeant's face. This could connote that it is a film about this particular character in the Battle of Passchendaele. Sound is used for effect in the opening scene. At first there is only diegetic sound of distant gun and artillery fire. This continues through the whole scene. As the is no non-diegetic sound masking the diegetic sound it can be clearly heard. This tells the audience that they are in a battle. The music doesn't start playing until the sergeant says "let's go", signaling to the other squad members to start attacking. The music is quite fast paced, causing feelings of excitement and tension in the audience. The music changes when one of the squad members is dead, one is bleeding out and all hope of any of them getting out of this alive is fading. This is when the music changes to a slow and sad tone, making the audience feel sad at this. The pace of the editing changes during the scene. It starts off slow when the sergeant is making a plan of attack. this it to show that this part of the scene is calm. This changes when they start the attack, as the pace becomes quick. This is to cause a feeling of thrill in the audience as the action happens. The editing becomes slow again when the sad music starts to play. This is because it would have the opposite affect if it stayed fast. The scene takes place in a bombed out town, there is rubble all around ans there is impact hole on the walls where bullets have embedded into them. This is all to tell the audience that this is taking place during the thick of battle. It also tells the audience that this battle has been going on for some time.