Mise en scène and atmosphere and how they tie together

I was re-watching the opening scene from 28 Days Later and I couldn't help but think of the Mise en scène of the scene and it's correlation with the feeling of isolation. There's just his emptiness of not only people but noise. Dead air consumes the environment as Jim (The only man ever shown) wanders the empty streets of London. Now i've seen zombie movies in the past and I've seen this one a bunch to, but it always leaves me feeling tense when he's wandering the streets and no what where he goes, all Jim sees is empty streets... not a person on the ground or on the stairs or on the bridge, just remnants of destruction long rested. We follow Jim as he tries to configure to a new world without knowing it's rules, following the old ones on instinct, going to the pay-phones, stealing from a destroyed vending machine, and collecting thrown away money being the greatest examples of this. The entire scene is set up to give you an urgent wonder, not because it's whimsical, it's because we  (as the viewer) need some kind of footing in this reality just as much as our main protagonist, and this entire sequence just won't give us one.