Taken - Opening Scene Breakdown And Analysis

Taken

The first scene shown is a video, the camera is handled unsteady and shows the first shot of a birthday hat. This shows us it is a home video and the hat is there to represent a child.  The fact that it starts off as a video rather than going into the past in a flashback gives off a sense of nostalgia, we get the impression that the people in the video are not around anymore as if the video is the only memory left of them. While this is happening there are sounds to represent old memories, such as distorted noises sounding as if they're coming from the video. The video focuses mainly on the birthday girl, perhaps to show her importance and foreshadowing her role in the film.
The scene goes onto show the mother figure giving her a present, as this is shown, non diagetic music is used, a piano being played slowly with faded out diagetic sounds of the child laughing and other background noise. Distorted sounds begin to increase in volume and the camera has quick cuts of the girl smiling before blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. 
The music stops for the sound of the girl blowing out the candles which then acts like a trigger to wake up the main character, almost like a ghost. This shows the girl means a lot to the man as it was powerful enough to wake him up.
He wakes up, this is shown using a quick close up. Next, wide shot is used to show the dark surroundings and the piano music continues. The man turns on the lamp and looks at the picture he fell asleep with in his hands, we see that it is the girl he saw in his dream/memory flashback. This gives the audience basic background information on the characters and keeps the story open to imagination.