The Road Opening Scene

In today's lesson we watched The Road's opening scene, this post apocalyptic opening scene is very different compared to the Book of Eli's and I am Legend's scenes. This film is rated a 15 due to strong violence and language and gory images. I would say that this film seems more towards a tragedy whilst the other two seem more like thriller/horror films. Personally I wouldn't say that this film seems any similar to the other two, there isn't any tension in the film and the sounds aren't similar, however the camera shots and movements are. I enjoyed seeing a flash back in The Road's opening scene because it was very positive and bright which was different, then as the film went on it got more and more upsetting and tragic. In the flashback/dream we see a graphic match which is the camera showing the flowers then the woman, this shows she is as delicate as a flower, after the happy scene we see the tragedy starting in which we see the woman is pregnant therefore we see how the spring flower scene it links with the woman's pregnancy due to life beginning and growing. The film has 3 main characters, a couple are shown in the first scene which are expecting a baby and as the scene goes on we see that the male partner must have lost his wife due to her not being around however he does have his son which is what makes it seem so upsetting and will make a big impact on viewers. There is one part we question about the flashback and that is "Why is the man filling up the bath tub?" I personally thought it'd be to perhaps save someone as the lights through the windows look orange so I assumed that there was a fire, some of us in lesson thought it could be to try to save the baby hence the child being alive and not the mother in the following scene. There is a sound bridge from the water in the bath tub to the man waking up and we can still hear water and as the camera zooms out we see a small waterfall. Our media teacher thought that the man could have been saving water because the character may have had an idea on what could happen next. In the scene we saw many extreme long shots to show the scene after the tragedy, there were a few panning shots and some tracking shots, however there weren't as many close ups or mid shots but it makes sense because the director must have wanted to show the audience the difference the tragedy made on Earth. As the father and son walk down to the bridge which has something along the lines of death and as they walk through the tunnel the light goes dark which seems to be like foreshadowing however because we have not finished watching this we can not confirm it. There is a voice over of the man talking through the opening scene, his voice sounds very weak and brittle, the camera also shows how damaged the world is which matches perfectly which does not seem as a coincidence as to why the director would have wanted this.