If you are a person who has trouble following a movie when things are told out of chronological order, this isn't the film for you. But if you like Christopher Nolan's work (The Dark Knight Rises, Momento, Inception), you'll want to see this film.
I was blown away with Momento (written and directed by Christopher Nolan), where
a man has no memory of what has happened before so that he has to write down
immediately what has happened so he can remember it. The film becomes layers of
onions peeled away to an ultimate core.
But in 1998, the year before Momento was released, Christopher Nolan
wrote, directed and filmed Following, where he experimented with the same
technique. Nolan’s film makes for really cerebral filmgoing, ultimately
exciting and satisfying.
Start as a viewer with the premise that the images you see
are reflections of various times and moments in the main character’s life, but jumbled
as in working a jigsaw puzzle. Nolan does give us all the answers we need, but ultimately we have to put all the pieces together.
The film follows “The Young Man”—who may or may not be named
Billy (Jeremy Theobald)—who tells us that he likes to follow people. Eventually
he follows Cobb, a handsome guy in a suit and tie (Alex Haw) who confesses to
being a day burgler. He takes Billy with
him on some robberies. Eventually, the two even rob Billy’s own apartment (which Billy doesn't tell Cobb because he wants Cobb evaluate him by what he owns). Billy does follow others. Drawn to The Blonde
(Lucy Russell), ex-mistress of a sadistic and dangerous nightclub owner. She has been robbed and Billy becomes obsessed with her.
Filmed in a “neo-noir style” [the rich black and white look of
the 1940s film noir], the film reminds me visually of Laurence Harvey’s Room at
the Top. The clothes even all look sixties. As classic film noir, we know that the
main character is being played and the woman he is involved with can’t be
trusted. But the hows and whys are what we have to wait for.
One of the ideas of the film is an obsession of
investigating the victim’s psyche by studying the clutter of their lives. In
Billy’s case, a large portrait of Marilyn Monroe hangs on his wall and could
easily be the Blonde he falls in love with. At the end she is coiffed and
costumed like the 1960s Marilyn in one her famous later portraits, upswept hair and black
turtleneck. Astute viewers might also smile when they see also that Billy’s door
has a Batman logo on it, a nod to Nolan’s future as The Dark Knight’s director?
This is film definitely worth seeing. I loved the
experience.
Following (1998) ***** (on Netflix streaming)
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