~Textual Analysis~
In the beginning of this film we see a girl on a boat paddling in the night around a beautiful island, this is like the establishing shot telling us that this will be the setting for the majority of the film.
The girl sings the lyrics "I have a dream, a song to sing, to help me cope with anything. If you see the wonder of a fairytale, you can take the future even if you fail' as she is paddling in her little boat and then shown walking up to a postbox. The girls appears to be daunted by this postbox whilst she walks up to it with three letters in hand, I can see this by the nervous look on her face and the 'point of view' angles of herself looking at it whilst she slowly walks towards it. The postbox is bright yellow and almost glows in the darkness, metaphorically speaking this suggests that if the girl posts these letters, it could be life changing and bring around happiness and joy.
All of the above suggests that these letters, if posted, could help the girl achieve her dream. The lyrics 'you can take the future even if you fail' would show she has decided to post them because she has nothing to loose and even if she is unsuccessful in whatever the aim of the letters is, she can still have a bright future. Through this last line, she trails from a singing voice to a nervous and trembling tone showing the audience that she is nervous about her actions, but due to the fact we have concluded that they could help her dreams come true, I have gathered that she must be somewhat exited and is just anticipating that if these letters do what she has intended them to do, her life could take a supposed 'better' turn.
We can now take a guess that the plot will heavily rely on these three letters and that their 'aftermath' will have a 'snowball effect' on the rest of the plot.
Calm music plays in the background of the girl posting each letter as she reads out who each one is addressed to in an anxious tone. The shot turns to each letter where we can see the soon to be destination of them; one to the UK, USA and Sweden.
After this, the scene cuts to fun music with three very different, but similar in age, men seeming to be in a rush and all using a method of transport in order to get them somewhere unknown to us. Each man is in a location that appears to be one of the three locations that were written on the girls letter; one America, we can see this due to the american accents and yellow taxi's with 'NYC' printed on them, one England, we can see this also because of the accents and the green scenery with the black taxi's and the last Sweden, as it looks like a less developed, more cultural country with baazars running through it and the sun beaming. The shot is divided into three equal parts and each mans passport photo is shown, the subjects in the frame are then interrupted by a plane sliding them upwards. It is at this point where we can take a fairly accurate guess that these men are all on their way to the girl for a reason that we still aren't aware of and that they all seem happy about it.
All of this suggests to me that the backbone of this plot will be the girls relationship with these three men and a series of events unfolding as we find out who these men are and why and how they are both going to the girl and how they know her. This is all that is revealed to us in the opening, we are left with many questions such as 'what exactly is the girls dream' and 'why might these three men be a part of it'. Even though we say that there is a deeper element to the film as it is most likely about a dream coming true, we can see that it also seems to be a fun and fast paced film with the fun music and smiles from the men. As the animated plane drags the shots of the passport up the title is revealed 'Mamma Mia', this is an italian expression which can be used to express a range of emotions such as anxiousness, fear, joy and surprise. This suggests that the island is somewhere in Italy, that all three men eventually make it to the island because the passport shot almost signifies one of the last steps to a travel and that that these three men will bring all of these elements of emotion to the story and may cause an unexpected stir that would have a 'crazy' ending.
There are no teenage characters introduced in this opening so it would not be considered a teenage drama, however we can see that it is a musical and may be emotional in some parts so could possibly be a romantic or dramatic one, but like any typical musical would most often unveil a story as well as be fun and happy to watch.
The only characters shown in the opening are the girl and the three men, that for some reason she has apparently sent for. This suggests even though there may still be important characters, the 4 mentioned are the backbone of the plot in the ways I have mentioned above (e.g. why she has brought them to her). All of these 4 characters appear to be key.
The only dialogue involved excluding the singing that trails off into talking comes from the three men as they travel in a hurry saying 'I have to go', speaking to drivers and 'whooping' from excitement. This all emphasises the fun and positivity of the story, but also the importance of whatever was in the letters had to the men in order to make them so eager to go to the island.
The genre of this film is a musical romantic comedy. It confirms to the musical genre in the way that for every situation there is a relevant song e.g. 'Money Money Money' when the mother is complaining about the lack of money and the state of the island because everything is breaking, 'The winner takes it all' when Donna is reminiscing about the breakup and relationship of her and her ex boyfriend whom she thinks she may still have feelings for, and 'Take a chance on me' when Rosie takes a liking to one of Donna's ex's and wants to pursue a relationship. Mamma Mia confirms to the comedy genre through both performances and songs, for example when the 3 older women (Donna, Rosie and Tanya) are dancing around to 'dancing queen' it is comical due to the actions and faces they pull, like when Rosie slides down the bannister and comes to a 'painful' halt. The way the storyline is portayed isn't all too serious either, its delivered in a funny way which makes the audience more relaxed and established that part of its genre is comedy. Aside from this, the producers have not just focused on trying to make the film 100% funny because that is not real life, the storyline itself is taken seriously as it is not a fantasy which is a good thing because otherwise people may take the entire film as a 'joke'. The film also conforms to the Romantic element of the genre throughout, the entire film is based around a marriage and preparation for Sophie and her boyfriends wedding, it is the whole reason why the 3 men were invited in the first place. However one particular element to the film challenged the typical 'romantic comedy' genre when last minute Sophie decided not to get married, and instead her Mother decided to marry one of the men she had left many years ago, when they rekindled their love for each other at her daughters wedding location.
Overall it is a very fun and intriguing opening and personally, I would want to watch more. Enough information is revealed to give us an idea of what the plot may entail, however there are many questions yet to be answered, which would cause the majority of the audience to continue watching.
This was a professionally made film.
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