Frantic (Roman Polanski, 1988)

 

I always loved the less successful films of Roman Polanski like The Ninth Gate and disliked his masterpieces like Chinatown. Although I consider him a great director I have to say that some of his films baffle me as to what he chose to shoot them. But having said that I can say with certainty that Polanski is a cinema maker who can direct any kind of film he wants. From period drama to edgy thriller and from neo-noir movie to black comedy. When I first saw Frantic I was very young and my memories from that screening are incredibly vague. I do remember though that I thought that Paris was the most exciting city in the world. Filled with mystery, crime, attics and hidden criminals. Apparently Paris is not like that and all this thing that I was feeling about Paris was due to Polanski's talent to make Paris look so ruthless and exciting at the same time. 

I saw Frantic again a couple of times when I was much older and I got the picture pretty clearly. Although a movie that could have been a by-the-numbers neo-noir film, Polanski gives an extremely distinctive flavor in the movie (not that the story is not captivating by itself) and levitates the film to a level of pure artistic neo-noir thriller. The scenes in Paris are simply amazing. The atmosphere of that movie gives to Paris a character that outside Godard, no one has ever come even close to. The film literally grabs you by the nose and it has you there, waiting, biting your nails from anticipation and suspense that flow like a fucking flood and consume you. There are many neo-noir thrillers with a mystery in them, but there aren't many movies as effective as Frantic is. I can say easily that is one of the movies that I watch gladly uncountable times. I never seem to have enough of the fucking thing.   

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

 

To make Raymond Chandler's impeccable prose and words into a movie is a difficult task indeed. The famous noir American writer with his unique private eye Philip Marlowe, had a talent to tell a story in his own unorthodox and highly stylish way like no other before him or after him. Before I watched the movie of Howard Hawks I had already read most of Chandler's books and I had announced him one of my all time favorite authors. Howard Hawks' movie is an interesting retelling of the story and an equally interesting cinematic version. But I think that if you have read the book, then the comparison is really useless. 

The movie tries eagerly to capture the irony and character of Philip Marlowe through the performance of Humphrey Bogart who plays the famous private detective and in a way succeeds but not the extent of being equally satisfying as the book. The movie in general is a serious and honest effort to bring in life the captivating story of Chandler. By many the film is considered a masterpiece of noir film, but I won't go that far. Yes the movie has charm, undeniable charm, but if you have read the book then the film's charm is simply overshadowed. There is most certainly an atmosphere in the movie, an uncertain, "smoky" atmosphere but it was a basic effort to turn the book into a moving picture. The film never went that far as to surprise the audience. Yes it's efficient, yes it's thorough, but it lacks that certain factor that would levitate it to a higher level of that of the unforgettable movie. As a conclusion I must admit that I prefer a thousand times to read the book one more time than to watch the film one more time. I enjoy it and I would recommend it, but that's how far I will go with that movie.   

Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992)

 

Well imagine comparing that wonderful darkish and atmospheric superhero movie with The Avengers. It's like comparing The Beatles with lounge music played in fancy bars in Ibiza. The first one shines like a star and the second is the fucking travesty of art. Batman Returns directed by the major talent Tim Burton is a movie that relies heavily on its villains. And by the gods what memorable villains that movie has. Danny DeVito as Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Christopher Walken as Max Shreck. All of them giving the performance of their life, all of them adding to the movie a cynical, dark tone that fits most perfectly to the atmosphere of the movie. 

Tim Burton knows better than anyone to make a movie that is, gorgeously, balancing between the action piece, the comic and the neo-noir film with the nihilism and the bleakness. Batman Returns is a pure dark piece, a dark piece that has its roots in the cinema that came here to mesmerize the spectator, to make him follow its tone like a hypnotized creature. That was a time that superhero films had still cinema art inside of them, instead of moronic noisy action and boring, useless dialogues only to fill the gap. That was a time that superhero films relied mostly in style and form, instead of hot fucking air. Batman Returns makes use of some of the most charming and appealing aesthetical technics of cinema. It's most of all a movie that came here to take you by the hand and show you another dimension, another reality, another world, another universe. And boy what kind of alluring universe is that, that our dear friend Tim has manufactured.  

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (Chad Stahelski, 2019)

Punches, kicks, knives, axes and tons of guns, the third part of John Wick has everything you need in order to have a thrilling action neo-noir movie. With a fantasizing and most exquisite decor, with memorable action scenes that last a lifetime and with an attidute of the ellegant and the dirty coming together, John Wick: Chapter 3 wins the bet and delivers one of the most satisfying and entertaining sequels that we have ever seen. With a rainy and most insecure atmosphere, with prettiness and ugliness blending in a refreshing and cold as the razor cocktail Mr. Wick is taking us for a ride inside his dangerous and thrilling life and we feel nothing less but astonished. It's quite a thing to watch a movie that is practically a never ending battle and not be bored. The creativity of the fights is such that you feel that there is an window opened for you and you are able to see all there is hidden in mysterious alleys and eccentric hotels.

John Wick: Chapter 3 is a movie that cannot be appreciated by the narrow minded, by those that think that action is made for brainless people. John Wick: Chapter 3 is a movie that combines the beauty and the atmosphere of the set with the vulgarity of the action. Never before have we seen so many action scenes packed in one movie, never before have we felt that the line between a dance and bloodbath is so damn close. There is that sense while you watching the film that the people and the set are part of something bigger, a wild feast of adrenaline and violence and we are participants in that feast and we are watching the arena. There is so much pathos in that movie, there is so much ellegance in that film, there is so much rawness in there. The third part of John Wick is a movie that you will find yourself wanting to watch again and again and you will see that there will be something inside you that will want to take that crazy and powerful ride inside the beauty of the moment that is been raped by the ugliness of the image.

Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton, 2019)

A typical old school neo-noir with a not so typical storyline. There is a clear social comment that derives from the movie and it's been mixed with the virtues of the mystery of a pure and authentic neo-noir. A lot of jazz, a lot of secrets, a lot of searching, a lot of detective cliches and a lot of charm in a film that speaks the language of old cinema but with a voice so clear and so fresh that hits you right in your sensitive parts. Edward Norton makes a typical American movie from the ones that are not afraid to speak the truth about the American way and the scandals that come under the table and harm people in a movie that doesn't go for the word masterpiece but for the phrase "honest movie". Edward Norton is, as always, incredible in his acting and here his character, with the strange syndrome that he has, is a true bliss for the eye and a real lesson for all actors out there. Motherless Brooklyn might not have the imaginative artistic direction that will steal your breath away, but it's a movie that runs like the river, although 144 minutes long you feel that you saw a half hour film and that is due to the plot and the trip of the detective to find the clues. The movie very quickly wraps its arms around you and you forget time, you forget that you are in a theatre, you forget that you are watching a movie and you become one with the 50s era.

Motherless Brooklyn like I said is an honest movie,  a movie that speaks the truth, a movie that has undeniable quality and a movie that makes you clearly and authentically identify with the main character, it makes you love him, it makes you wanna follow him, it makes you simply one of his best friends making the trip even more exciting. There is definitely something highly idiosyncratic about the main character, there is definitely a certain kind of pathos and charm in him, there is definitely a strange allure in his loneliness and there is definitely a whole world of characteristics in his persona that make him a truly lovable guy to the eyes of the audience and finally a character who came to write his own story and mythos in the neo-noir family of our civilization. Motherless Brooklyn is a movie that came not to stir the waters but to make them look crystal clear and to shed light to the dirtiness of the world by showing the deeds of a character who goes down as one of the most imaginative fictional creations that we have seen in a neo-noir film.

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

As you watch the shadows of Blade Runner you think of deep emotions. Deeper than hell and you fantasize that the world will turn dark someday and you are scared, totally. There is something about Blade Runner that takes out the most guilty emotions from you. The ones that hide beneath the surface of yourself. There is this thing about Blade Runner and the touching story that is unravels. That love, that pain, that hate, that undeniable truth, that once you are born a slave you are always a slave. This is a movie that you long to get inside of it. You long to touch the screen and be swept inside the world of Blade Runner. There is this ultimate fear that you get once you think of that world, but again there is this ultimate charm, this ultimate beauty that comes from everything ugly that touches you.

Blade Runner can only be felt. It's not a movie that comes with words. There are numerous scenes that you find yourself utterly touched. There are numerous scenes that you want to let the air from your lungs to fill the room that you are in. There is this beauty, this dark and uncertain pathos that comes around like a python and squeezes everything that it's inside you so after some time you are left only with a memory and a feeling. But that feeling it's so strong that can move mountains and shake oceans. Blade Runner is a movie that works like a psychedelic drug, the more you let yourself loose, the bigger will be the trip that you will have.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

Dark atmosphere and exquisite filmmaking is not enough to fill the gap that The Dark Knight leaves behind. So much heroism, so many big, pompous words, so much melodrama, why all this, we all know that this recipe leads to no man's land. Regardless the fact that Christopher Nolan put all his talent in the process of this film its childish screenplay with the tearful and filled with melodrama dialogues can't maintain a certain, respectable position for that movie. We all know that The Dark Knight became an incredible hit with lists putting inside the 500 best films of all time, but the sad truth tells us that is a movie filled with plastic morality and full of hot air big words. It's disturbing Hollywood agenda along with the realistic and dramatic power that Nolan has inflicted in the movie make it one of those films that the atmospheric tone and the suspenseful agenda are lost inside a waterfall of "honorable" bullshit and crappy made, looking like the huge truth of life, lines. Batman is a comic and it needs that taste and flavor of that comic thing, it's not a thing that can be humanized completely, Nolan tried to bring the realism in the Batman mythology and instead of that he made a cheesy drama, that causes the viewer to really rebel against the pomposity that runs through the film. It's inevitable that after some point you are tired of listening to supposedly idealistic conversations that have the morality of a five-year-old child and the brains of a nun that is forgotten by time and space. Drama needs real depth and questions and answers that are intriguing, stimulating and thought-provoking, not the childish mumbling that this movie has to offer.