Codes and Conventions of the Mystery Genre

The Modern City

Mystery films are oftenest in modern urban cities going back to the time of film noirs, when these films reflected the fears and insecurities of a post war world. Too this day mystery films play are worries about the modern films, whether they be in the politic world or in our very own lives, mystery films play our sneaking suspicion that just under the surface there’s something dark and evil lurking there. The cities themselves often feel like dystopias which with a film like Blade Runner is very much the case; the dark and dirty, the glittering lights of billboards and skyscrapers contrasting with the griminess of the world the people below live in. For my film I want to create the same sense of mood of gloom that films like Enemy and Mulholland Drive by filming the modern industrial city as if it were a desolate dystopia.

Questionable Protagonist

Despite almost always being from the perspective of one main character mystery films often feature main protagonists who we struggle to understand and often suspect to be up to something. This reflects the feeling within us not only of mis-trust of others but even of ourselves and our own memories and actions. In a film like Enemy the main protagonist finds a doppelganger of himself, making us question if this is really happening or it’s just an expressionist point of view of the main character losing his sense of reality. In my film the main protagonist will be of questionable mind-set