DJ_Nar
Joined Jul 2013
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The Man Who Wasn't There contains all the ingredients of a film noir - a femme fatale, a cheated husband, hats and long coats, a murder, deception and extortion. It follows on from the Coen brothers 1984 debut film Blood Simple and their masterful Fargo, in which a second-hand car salesman devises a cunning plan and goes under.
The same happens to the hairdresser. In the summer of 1949, a customer tells him he is looking for capital to start a dry-cleaning business. 'Washing without water,' oracles the sweating entrepreneur. He needs just ten thousand dollars to open his first business. With the money he makes from that, the next one will follow, and so on. Barber Ed smells his chance to escape the drudgery of the barber shop ánd his passionless marriage in one fell swoop. With blackmail, he will raise the necessary amount.
Billy Bob Thornton superbly plays the little man who grabs too high. When his dream seems to come true, a frugal smile appears on his sunken face. His happiness is short-lived. Through gullibility and dumb luck, the barber's dream turns into a tragedy.
At the last Cannes festival, Joel Coen was awarded the directing prize (ex aequo with David Lynch for Mulholland Drive). Rightly so. The Man Who Wasn't There is a sophisticated, understated, highly successful ode to film noir.
The same happens to the hairdresser. In the summer of 1949, a customer tells him he is looking for capital to start a dry-cleaning business. 'Washing without water,' oracles the sweating entrepreneur. He needs just ten thousand dollars to open his first business. With the money he makes from that, the next one will follow, and so on. Barber Ed smells his chance to escape the drudgery of the barber shop ánd his passionless marriage in one fell swoop. With blackmail, he will raise the necessary amount.
Billy Bob Thornton superbly plays the little man who grabs too high. When his dream seems to come true, a frugal smile appears on his sunken face. His happiness is short-lived. Through gullibility and dumb luck, the barber's dream turns into a tragedy.
At the last Cannes festival, Joel Coen was awarded the directing prize (ex aequo with David Lynch for Mulholland Drive). Rightly so. The Man Who Wasn't There is a sophisticated, understated, highly successful ode to film noir.
From the very first images in Lost Highway, a deserted road at night, Lynch draws you into a dark, psychologically charged world where a dangerous freak could strike any moment.
The tension does not ease when we meet Fred (Bill Pullman) and Renee (Patricia Arquette), whose lives are threatened by mysterious video tapes containing images of their house.
. themselves in bed . Then a murder in their bedroom.
The viewer is 3/4 hour into the film and Fred is accused of murder. On death row, Fred has visions and suddenly there is another man. The nightmare takes on a new form.
With this new character, Pete (Balthazar Getty), the film takes a completely different direction. Pete works in a garage, does odd jobs for a gangster and is involved in a crime, prompted by a young woman named Alice, played again by Patricia Arquette.
And so the brilliant David Lynch continues.
The film's storyline becomes unclear.
. Are Fred and Pete two sides of the same man?
. Is this a dream, caused by drugs?
. Are Renee and Alice the same person?
David Lynch does not solve these riddles. He does suggest that at a certain point everything becomes a 'full circle'.
Only to disappear into the darkness like a magician who has left an unsolvable puzzle on the table.
Everything unfolds in the stunning, personal, visual effects and sound David Lynch style.
Does David Lynch lose track?
Like a magician disappearing in a cloud of fog?
Are you as a viewer left behind bewildered or disillusioned?
No!
It is a hell of a trip. Overwhelming and hallucinatory!
Why don't you let yourself drown into Lynch's world of illusions?
The tension does not ease when we meet Fred (Bill Pullman) and Renee (Patricia Arquette), whose lives are threatened by mysterious video tapes containing images of their house.
. themselves in bed . Then a murder in their bedroom.
The viewer is 3/4 hour into the film and Fred is accused of murder. On death row, Fred has visions and suddenly there is another man. The nightmare takes on a new form.
With this new character, Pete (Balthazar Getty), the film takes a completely different direction. Pete works in a garage, does odd jobs for a gangster and is involved in a crime, prompted by a young woman named Alice, played again by Patricia Arquette.
And so the brilliant David Lynch continues.
The film's storyline becomes unclear.
. Are Fred and Pete two sides of the same man?
. Is this a dream, caused by drugs?
. Are Renee and Alice the same person?
David Lynch does not solve these riddles. He does suggest that at a certain point everything becomes a 'full circle'.
Only to disappear into the darkness like a magician who has left an unsolvable puzzle on the table.
Everything unfolds in the stunning, personal, visual effects and sound David Lynch style.
Does David Lynch lose track?
Like a magician disappearing in a cloud of fog?
Are you as a viewer left behind bewildered or disillusioned?
No!
It is a hell of a trip. Overwhelming and hallucinatory!
Why don't you let yourself drown into Lynch's world of illusions?
Cop Land, directed by the talented young James Mangold, is reminded of Martin Scorsese's cinema, for example in the way the struggle between good and evil is elevated above the story.
The setting for Cop Land is the town of Garrison (NJ), on the other side of the George Washington Bridge that leads to New York. Cop Land is the nickname for the town, where the percentage of blue uniforms is higher than anywhere else. They do their work in NYC during the day and return to Garrison in the evening. It is the place "where officers can be themselves before crossing back to a place where victims are perpetrators and perpetrators are victims", according to Cop Land's undisputed leader, Detective Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel).
Ray tries to cover up a misstep by his cousin, also a NY cop. In doing so, he reveals himself to be an autocrat who has completely lost sight of the line between good and evil. And he's not the only one - the cops from Cop Land have already crossed many lines. All this under the blind eye of Garrison's sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone). In an absolutely brilliant performance, Stallone portrays this sheriff as a sullen gorilla who practices the hear-see-speak-no-evil principle in an exemplary manner. Until the arrogance of power gets the better of even him and he intervenes under the motto: "no one is above the law".
It's wonderful how Mangold manages to avoid every cliché. Action and human drama go together beautifully. The performances of the main actors are a source of joy, which is not only thanks to them but also in large part to the intelligent and crystal-clear structure of the script and to James Mangold himself.
The setting for Cop Land is the town of Garrison (NJ), on the other side of the George Washington Bridge that leads to New York. Cop Land is the nickname for the town, where the percentage of blue uniforms is higher than anywhere else. They do their work in NYC during the day and return to Garrison in the evening. It is the place "where officers can be themselves before crossing back to a place where victims are perpetrators and perpetrators are victims", according to Cop Land's undisputed leader, Detective Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel).
Ray tries to cover up a misstep by his cousin, also a NY cop. In doing so, he reveals himself to be an autocrat who has completely lost sight of the line between good and evil. And he's not the only one - the cops from Cop Land have already crossed many lines. All this under the blind eye of Garrison's sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone). In an absolutely brilliant performance, Stallone portrays this sheriff as a sullen gorilla who practices the hear-see-speak-no-evil principle in an exemplary manner. Until the arrogance of power gets the better of even him and he intervenes under the motto: "no one is above the law".
It's wonderful how Mangold manages to avoid every cliché. Action and human drama go together beautifully. The performances of the main actors are a source of joy, which is not only thanks to them but also in large part to the intelligent and crystal-clear structure of the script and to James Mangold himself.
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