Utopia Genre Analysis

Utopia Genre Analysis

• The genre of the film includes a generic hybridity of many genres. (Steve Neale).
• The film is called 'Utopia' showing scenes which are clearly not, showing opposite of that such as abandoned buildings and suggestion to death. This has broken the verisimilitude.
• The trailer suggests it could be a dystopian horror because there is suggestions of control from the government, it creates the idea of a doomsday and this could link to the shop we first see called 'Doomsday Comics', the use of things that are usually seen as safe and innocent feel unsettling- rabbit and bright colours. There is a contrast (binary oppositions) of perfect vs rundown buildings, with the hotel lobby, gentleman's club and field compared to an office building and abandoned comics store. 
• Horror- The use of the dead old tree, eerie anatomical drawings. There is a man tied up in a dark, boarded up room in an abandoned house. And the use of the moon and night-time shown afterwards.
• However the moonlight and contrast with day time makes it seem also like a dystopian because there's bad stuff happening at day and night. Another example of dystopian is rubble when the man opens a box of liquid in bottles used for injections. 
• The trailer also suggests a physiological thriller with the scene where the man uses gas on someone, it includes drugs and is suggested from the iconography of dream-like sequences, colour and the binary of reality vs a drug world. There is surveilance in the statue with a clandestine meeting in the backgrounds, hints that they are being watched and hints to conspiracy with symbols, codes and drawings.
• There are hints of action such as the explosion.
• This could be drama mystery because drama is more serious and doesn't include aspects of comedy as there isn't any generic conventions such as humour. The mystery aspect with people standing there thinking what's happening or perhaps looking for something, there's hints that something might need to be solved; some people look like they are on the hunt for someone or something.
• It subverts the idea of some darker genres as it includes bright colours and the music isn't usually associated with genres like that.