The Happening analysis

Cast:

Mark Wahlberg
Zooey Deschanel
John Leguizamo

Ashlyn Sanchez
Betty Buckley

The film opens up with fast moving clouds across the screen, with quite simple, innocent music with an egde of mystery and suspense, also the sound of wind is intwined in the music.

The sky, and the clouds are light and summery in the first few seconds then they turn dark, and the music changes to fast and filled with tension and soon the screen goes to black.

The film then opens up to Central Park in New York City and shows a lot of people, and the rustle of trees in the wind and strange music. The camera then shows a long shot of two girls sitting on a bench and one girl says, 'I forgot where I am' very blankly which makes you instantly think, what's wrong with her? But then the second girl tells her, and she laughs it off which makes you relax again.

A loud piercing scream grabs the attention of the girl who didn't say the opening line. A pan shot searches Central Park for the source of the scream. A mid shot of the girl who is distracted by the scream is shown, and the wind blows her hair and her facial expression is confused and panicked. The camera shows nothing of the girl sitting beside her, even though the distracted girl is speaking quickly and asking questions to her but she never answers. The distracted girl describes what she see's, and we don't see anything of what she is seeing which creates mystery within the scene. Her friend sitting beside her doesn't respond to what she is saying. A long shot of central park is shown and people are walking backwards, and some are frozen still. Then another scream comes from the opposite direction, and the girl paying attention says, 'Is that blood?' but we never see what she's seeing. A mid shot of the distracted girl's face, and she is very startled. Another long of Central Park shows everyone to be frozen still, and a few start to walk backwards.

There is a lot of jerky head movements from the girl, and shocked breaths come from her. The whistling from the wind carries on throughout the opening. A shot of a dog trotting across the grass is shown which proves, along with the girl, are not affected by what is happening in the park.

The girl turns to her friends, addresses her as 'Claire', and she is also frozen. The woman repeats Claire a couple of times, and the shot changes to a two people shot but Claire is out of focus. Her face then twitches, and her eyes focus back in and she looks throughly confused then she speaks nonsense. Music then builds up tension, and the whistling of the wind gets louder.

A close up of Claire is shown pulling out a hairpin out of her hair, and slowly brings it to her neck and stabs herself with it. Claire's expression is completely bewildered, and she's not aware of what she is doing to herself. The girl beside her who has been the most active throughout the scene doesn't scream or say anything, she turns her head away from Claire. Then the scene instantly goes to busy New York City.