The film begins with a women running through a dark, misty woods. We are uncertain if she is just running out of own accord or running away from something. This shows some isolation and gives the shot a creepy feel. The bare trees and wash of blue colour adds to this. It is also misty which suggests it is the early hours of the morning.
It gradually becomes apparent that she is running an assault course, the audience start to think that the women is not a feminine as most women are portrayed in most films.
As she goes inside, the masculine blue theme continues. The wall and tables are lined with technology and male oriented items such as gadgets and guns.
The juxtaposition of the men and the female subject 'Clarice' exaggerates how weak she is because the elevator scene filled with men surrounding her making her seem smaller than she really is. Furthermore, the use of the men's red uniforms juxtaposed with the muted colours could possibly represent the male gender being a threat in this film because red connotes danger and death.
The camera work is mainly used to show that she is a women in a mans world. The rope shot seems to show this, as well as the lift shot. The panning shot of Clarice getting over the emphasises the amount of time it is taking her to get over the net to reach her goal. It suggests that she struggles with weakness but is resilient to overcome her obstacles.
The tracking shot and establishing shot cleverly shift the focus from the bigger picture to the main character to so we know who will be the main focus in the story. The title cover the shots and are very bold and the main focus point which could highlight that the scenes are not as important as they are the build up to the more tense areas. The showing of the female taking part in everyday normal activities tells us that she is an everyday person and this causes the audience to feel nervous as we realise this could be involving us as the audience more than we initially thought.
