Close Up

I didn't know a great deal about this film before i saw it, but i was incredibly impressed. It deals with a young Belgian filmmaker who is accused of 5 counts of murder in a bar shooting, the protagonist (played excellently by a young Robert De Niro lookalike) has no memory of the incident. To begin with this is not new territory and may remind you of Primal Fear but what follows is an interesting display of the role the media have in modern criminal proceedings, both the police and Stefens defence attorney use the mass media circus around the case to control the outcome, blurring the lines between truth and fiction. Eventually blurring Stefens own understanding of the event. The film can be read as a critique of the role of the media in criminal proceedings something were hearing more and more about, but I would rather read the film as a brilliant exploration of the media's role in constructing realities and the postmodern infringements of the media on a important institution, the law. The films self reflexive position (young Stefen as a filmmaker) provides an interesting discourse on the role of the visual image and reality in contemporary society and how easy this constructed reality can be disrupted for personal gain.