The film "Children of Men" is set in a near post-apocalyptic future in which there is a worldwide infertility rate and no babies are being born. The genre is science fiction/dystopian.
The film opens with the sound of a news report. Before a picture even appears on the screen, the audience is made aware that the world is falling apart, hearing headlines such as "Day 1000 of the siege of Seattle." There is no sound other than the news report and nothing visual. This creates tension and apprehension, and causes the audience to concentrate only on what is being said. The audience then discovers that these shocking headlines are not the leading story, revealing that this is a world where people are used to these terrible things happening. We then find out what the leading story is: "the death of Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet." This one sentence reveals crucial information to the audience. We know within the first few seconds of the film that for some reason, babies are not being born. Only after this is revealed does the film show the first shot: a crowd of people, all adults, in a coffee shop, watching a television screen. The low-key lighting of the shot creates a dark and melancholy atmosphere, emphasised by the facial expressions of the people in the shot - they look shocked and mournful, revealing the unhappiness in this world and suggesting the significance of the youngest person's death to the characters.
The film's protagonist is introduced in this first shot. He pushes his way through the crowd and orders a coffee. This ordinary action shows that this future isn't so different from today. Also, because this character doesn't seem so affected by the death of "baby Diego" like everyone else, he automatically stands out as an important character.
The camera doesn't cut to a new shot as it follows the central character out of the coffee shop and onto the street. Text reveals that the story is set in London in 2027. The long shot of the street gives us an idea of what London in 2027 is like. Some aspects of it are the same, for example, the cars and the buildings. But there are differences that emphasise the future setting, e.g. the screen on the side of a bus, and the general dirtiness of the city. The lighting is still low-key and the colours are mostly grey and black, creating a dreary atmosphere.
The opening scene is more or less entirely a single shot, showing the story from the protagonist's perspective: we leave the coffee shop as he does, we follow him down the street. This causes the audience to concentrate on this character and shows everything in chronological order. As a result the opening scene has a slow pace, meaning that the interruption caused by the bomb is more sudden and impactful. After the bomb goes off, we hear screaming, and the only other sound is a faint ringing. As well as the image of the woman walking out of the smoke holding her torn off arm, the ringing sound gives the audience a feeling of shock and unease; it's distressing and feels unsettlingly realistic.
The opening scene of "Children of Men" is a perfect example of a film showing, not telling - in only a couple of minutes, without much dialogue and no previous explanation, the audience is aware that the film is set in the future, there are no children, and the world has become a violent and barely functioning society. This is necessary information to be given in the opening so that we have an understanding of the world in which the film is set. We also know who the main character is - however, not a lot of information is revealed about him. We also don't know who set off the bomb and why there are no children being born. This is information that is left for the audience to discover throughout the film, which is effective because it wouldn't make sense for the audience to be bombarded with too much information in the opening sequence, and it leaves us with questions and a desire to keep watching.
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