Day Nine/Ten - Shadows and Fog (1991)

I wanted to remind myself that I like Woody Allen after seeing To Rome with Love, so I watched Shadows and Fog (1991) which I had never seen. At first I thought I was going to dislike the movie, but the longer I watched the more I liked it.

The film uses as its dramatic gimmick a serial strangler being loose in an unnamed European town. No one knows who the killer is and he kills only in the fog. Max Kleinman (Allen) is awoken by a group of vigilantes and told he must join them. In Kleinman's Kafkaesque world, he is never told what his job is or where he is to meet the others, so much of the film he is wandering around trying to discover his purpose, which everyone but him seems to know. Metaphor about life? Of course.

In his travels, Max meets Irmy, Mia Farrow, a sword-swallower with the circus who has left her clown lover (John Malkovich) and ends up in a brothel. She makes $700 from Jack (John Cusack) a rich student who is enamoured with her. She gets caught in a police raid and at the police station Max and Irmy meet. We follow them through the rest of the night.

Many of the early Allen obsessions are evident in the film: discussions of reality vs. illusion, whether there is a God, what death involves, how one lives in this world where one has no idea why one is there, what is the importance of illusion. Discussing philosophy is one of Allen's strong points and here it becomes engrossing.

The film can often be maddening. During one long discussion between the prostitutes, the camera pans 360 degrees twice, at a speed slow enough that one can register the faces, but fast enough that one could be dizzy from the movement. Perhaps the purpose is to disorient the viewer because that is what it does. Allen also, a couple of times, has a character talking, but he focuses the camera on a person listening (who stands stock still not really reacting to what is being said).

As the title suggests, most of the film (which is black and white) is done with lots of shadows and fog.

There are lots of good supporting actors: Lily Tomlin, Jody Foster, Kathy Bates, Madonna, Julie Kavner, William H. Macy, Fred Gwynne, Kenneth Mars.

I recommend the film. It's not one of Allen's masterpieces, but it makes for good viewing.

Shadows and Fog (1991) ****