Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Opening Title Sequence

   Napoleon Dynamite was released in 2004. Its opening sequence suits the genre, black comedy, which can be recognised by a few signifiers. When you see the card that says ‘Staring John Heder’ with a logo of an alien you can quickly connote the character John Heder will play is a nerd. To further this idea, the next card reveals Heder's character's name as ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ with an image of the geek. He is dramatic, over-the-top and stereotypically true to film as being a geek. Listening to the lyrics of the calm, country song ‘I can tell that we’re going to be friends’ is the final hint that can connote this is a black comedy as the audience laughs at something that in society is not usually laughable.  

The song lyrics also mention going back to school which coincides with the school card that features the image of Napoleon. This establishes the high school location of the movie, which as a result reveals the character's age. The song's tone also helped set the relaxed, calm and considerably dull atmosphere which fits with the character of Napoleon as he is all these features. The character also has an active side which can be connoted with few props from the opening sequence such as the ninja star which is thrown. The narrative of the film is open though thanks to the song lyrics ‘I can tell that we’re going to be friends’. The audience gets the sense that Napoleon is going to make a friend and perhaps this is the end of the film creating a closed narrative. It is questionable. The theme is also obvious to be surrounding school life and due to Napoleon's appearance you can consider one theme to be bullying.

Also as a further note the opening was very original and possibly could be mistaken as an amateur opening. Not because it was bad as it was brilliant but due to its simplicity and low budget needed. This sort of opening interests me and I will ask this to be consider during our planning period of our own opening.