The Purge Opening Analysis ☮ ☮ ☮

The Purge (2013), is a film set in a near future in the united states, where for twelve hours all crime is legal including murder, This is not to affect the rich suburban Sandin family, with their high security system invented by their father the family is safe, until.... Sympathy kicks in for the youngest child letting a stranger in the house, leaving the family with a big decision help the man and keep him safe and put their safety in danger, or sacrifice the man and live with a guilty conscience.

Opening with a black screen the film starts up by slowly bringing the audience into the scene, at this time a non-diegetic sound of the song Clair de Lune, a light string based song, is played in the background, setting a calm and steady mood for the audience, But almost immediately the audience are confuse as we see what appears to be cctv footage of a high angled wide shot of a man in a back alley with his hood up being shot my another guy, His mise en scene of wearing a hoodie concealing his identity, conforming to the stereotype that he is a "hoodlum" and is a threat to the peace, It also gets the audience to consider why the man is being killed and if he was deserving of it. Also looking at the poor quality clip we can see in the right hand corner the audience can see that the clip is in Jacksonville, US, setting a location for the film also, also in this corner we see that date of 2017, showing that this is a prediction of what life will be like in the near future.

We then gather that we aren't going to know the exact location and main characters of the film at the very beginning as we aren't seeing shots from just one location and aren't focusing on anyone personality's, But instead a montage of the violence, with gangs beating on people, visual use of guns, and a distressing scene of an unidentifiable person swinging an axe and killing if not seriously harming another individual, this sends off the impression of what the film is all about crime life and violence, making the film suit a higher certificate rating as this could be affecting towards kids.


Though some scenes only briefly cover the violent scenes, the audience doesn't have the chance to empathise with the characters who are being hurt, Until we see a girl covered in blood appearing to be cowering or hiding against a bright white wall in a medium shot, letting the audience see the grief that this is causing, Following this we see a distressing scene that shows a unarmed man being beaten by two others showing him a weak position as he is shown kneeling beneath the two thugs, then letting the audience to dislike the two gang members and emphasize for the people who are getting hurt. The shots now are in focus of those who are being hurt and we see buildings being set on fire, showing a possible riot that may be occurring. With the shots continuing in the cctv style shots we see in that the white text box in the right hand corner has the same two words at the top throughout "purge feed" suggesting that all of these violent acts are linked and are apart of this "purge", which shows the audience an immediate link to the title.

One upsetting shot in particular shows a blurred image of six men lying face down in an empty street in a long shot, this last roughly five seconds which is longer than the other shots, which makes the audience feel as the slow, light music is a tribute to those who have lost their lives in these crimes and that their death is remembered and valued. As we see more of what appears to be regular, everyday, innocent civilians being harmed it shows that the concept of the film could be gang life against the everyday people in society.

The scene closes with a shot of a man circling the bodies and random spots of fire in a large street in a long shot, who is a "hoodlum", also with the white text in the corner we can see that the year has changed to 2021, this year had been increased by one year every so often throughout the shots but on the same day,which shows the audience this is an annual occurrence to cause such disruption and trauma in a society, it makes the audience think for what reason do they do this annually when people are getting killed and hurt, it also makes the audience believe at this moment the gangs are on top and that the public are weak compared to them, and leaves the audience believing that at this time society is in chaos and needs to be helped.


The first purge film wasn't very good it lacked the action that it needed and so much more could have been done with the "freaky" "polite" killing gang, but failed in that department. Although the follow up was more entertaining, with its street view on the purge.