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"Inevitability is the feeling that comes across from the opening for M.  The children's song ends only to start again.  The laundrywoman shouts to them to stop, a demand made and ignored before,  but they continue.  She tiredly gathers her basket, trudges up the stairs, and hands off the clothes to another woman.  Everything we are shown has the feeling of familiarity that comes from the cyclical nature of a daily routine.  Visually, this is reinforced by the shot of the clock as it strikes twelve since a clock tells the forward progression of time even though the hands always move over the same territory.  The feeling of inevitability comes from the expectation that equilibrium must be disturbed for the narrative to begin.  It's a noir film, and the genre's conventions dictate the nature of the disturbance, a crime of some kind.  That knowledge creates frustration and anxiety since we know what's coming as soon as the silhouette slips into frame, but inevitably, it happens despite our knowing how the interaction will play out.  "
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