Apart from the opening scene, which incorporates special effects to help create a massive dry dock that serves as a prison (the prisoners hauling a ship into it with lines as thick as tree trunks), and a few
brief establishing shots, which include dramatic rises and falls of the camera through space and time as each new stage of the story begins, Les Misérables keeps us in close — sometimes very close — proximity to the actors.
Once Elizabeth has been
established on the beach, the film cuts to her much - aged face on the pillow of her Sydney bedroom, and this is followed by two
brief sequences in which Basil (Geoffrey Rush) and Dorothy (Judy Davis), in alternating
shots, are seen arriving at, respectively, their hotel and club rooms.