Analysis of opening of No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men uses it's own unique way of building suspense. By having a running narrative over images of dusty, desolate wasteland we as the audience are forced to listen to the voice and words which we are hearing.

The narrator is talking about a sequence of events and this is a clever trick as we want to hear more about this story and we wonder if we are going to see the sequence of events mentioned unfold or if they have already happened. It is a very subtle anticipation which leads to dramatic suspense.

We don't even see people until very near the end of the opening at which point we see a police office leading a man to a police car, this looks out of place in comparison to the scenes of bare land.

We then find out that the narrator is the police officer and we are able to put a face to the voice. The ending of the opening is a shot of a long highway which is intriguing as it could be seen as a metaphor as we don't know where the road is going, no do we know where the story will take us.