Character and Representation of Age in "The Girl with the dragon tattoo" - Natalie Sergeant

The Girl with the dragon tattoo

For a main amount of the opening we are introduced to a male character. This character fits a collective group in society, as the male seems to be displayed as a stereotypical upper class citizen. This is mainly displayed by the mise en scene, from what as the viewer we can tell, from that what seems to be his office from a establishing long shot, a stereotypical clean wooden office with an engraver on the wall. We would see a middle class office as having concrete walls and having much simpler furniture without engravings.

We see the character as old due to his clothing and surroundings. As said before his office shows him as a upper class citizen, that is more related to professors that we have seen in movies and when thinking about professors and the decor of the room we see him as old. His furniture has engraving and old pattern's that younger people would not own. His clothing carries on this view of him being old from a mid close up, his sweater and tie not being a chosen clothing style for youngster.

We can't tell much about this character, this is no real information given to us on this character so we can not tell if they are a protagonist or antagonist of this movie. Thought we see him more as a protagonist due to being introduced to him opening the packaging and displaying uneasiness, this would not be typical of a thriller  to introduce their antagonist this way so this leads to believe he could be an aiding character of protagonist.

Though contrast to this old male character we are brought to a young female for the rest of the opening. At first you are unable to fully identify he gender with the first mid-long shot, as he clothing is not stereotypical feminine and would be classed as more masculine. This is that starting enigma code for that character as through out the sequence we get very little detail on her like the male, we can not tell if she is the protagonist or antagonist. Another enigma code set by this character is that her face is never fully revealed to the audience, for her walking mid/mid-long shots we only see her back and the side but it is covered by he hod. Then in a later shot she is placed in a meeting contrasting against older people, making her stand out of place and also for the fist time we get a shot where a side profile angle is used but with the use of shallow depth of field and other characters in the way we are still unable to make out this characters features adding enigma to the character to create suspense around them.

As stated before she is wearing very masculine clothing of a hood up hoodie, that is stereotypical seen with youth crimes, jeans, leather jacket, messenger bag and boots. All of her clothing is dark, giving us a view of the character being depressed because of her wearing such dark coloured clothing. To feather show her as a youth her surrounding are completely different from the elderly man. Where the man was in a rich establishment, she is in a urban setting that is worn out. Urban areas are more connected to youths due to going out and also due to her appearance it creates suspense.