Analysing Opening Sequences and Enigma - 'Inception'

The first opening scene that focuses on creating enigma that I will be looking at is from Christopher Nolan's 'Inception'.

The film opens with a tightly framed shot of waves crashing, with no conventional establishing shot, instantly creating enigma for the audience with the omission of a longer shot distance which would establish where the action is taking place.

Immediately after, a close up shot of a mysterious man lying in the sand, again tightly framed using canted angles, adds to the mystery of the scene. These techniques are used to disorientate audiences' perspectives as, additionally,  we are not introduced to this man nor do we know how he got here. 

We witness a possible 'flashback' or 'flashforward', potentially an hallucination, to children playing on the sand who the audience are not clearly introduced to (we find out these are projections of the man's children only much later in the narrative).

These jumps around in narrative order further create mystery for the audience, enigma only solved later in the film. The man is then investigated by a guard or soldier in a unidentifiable uniform who reveals that the man (who we later learn is Dom Cobb) has a gun, which could suggest to the audience that he could have previously been in danger or that he has come to kill someone. He is then dragged through to a mysterious building, where man is sat at the head of a table with his back turned to the camera.

When he turns, we realise he is incredibly old, but we do not know why, and when Cobb hears him say something, we witness the confusion on his face. This intrigues the audience, making them desperate to know more and comprehend what is happening.

This creates mystery surrounding the old man as he is shown as a powerful and possibly evil figure indicated by the lavish setting and by Cobb's reaction to his words.

Enigma is created principally because we meet characters who we aren't clearly introduced to, we don't get a clear idea of setting, and the audience feel as if they have come into the middle of narrative events with no exposition.