2019 neo-noir
Rating: 16/20
Plot: Spider-Man tries to unravel a mystery after a girl he wants to have sex with turns up missing.
I don't really know what to say about this movie. I didn't really understand it, but I kind of loved it. I also have come to the realization that I am attracted to Andrew Garfield.
I can't wait to watch this a second time, but my wife is very suspicious and likely tracking my viewing activity.
I wish you would have written some kind of interpretation that I could steal from...I guess I'll have to wing it now that I've watched it.
ReplyDeleteThere's a few things going on in this film. There's the themes and then there's the symbolism and metaphor. The themes I could pick out were about sexism and women and objects, consumerism (sex in advertising, being rich/poor, having/not having), commercialism/pop culture, and Hollywood's call to becoming a star (just to be let down and forgotten). We can talk more about how those themes come up throughout the movie...
The symbolism and metaphor was a little harder to nail down, but I gotta go with this being a dream sequence. I say that because it's 100% from Sam's perspective. He sees women as sex objects, so we do too. He solves these high-society puzzles with cereal boxes and Nintendo magazines. Then there are the images he sees when he's "awake" and then when he's "dreaming". On first viewing, I haven't pinned down when he's awake and when he's dreaming, but I have a few examples. His favorite Playboy cover is based on reality and being awake; then he's naked in a lake with a girl way out of his league that he's fantasized about earlier and she assassinated which allows her body to evoke the image on that Playboy cover -- very dreamlike and surreal. There are other instances of this we could talk about.
I think it just all comes down to the fact that he's apathetic about living in today's world. He doesn't get much love out of the things he should (music, sex, family, possessions). His search for "Sarah" is really his search for happiness. Like the uber rich guys giving up this world, I think he kills himself in the end of the movie (people walking into his apartment with him not in it, and he watches from afar). I wonder if the parrot saying something I couldn't comprehend helps give away the ending. The final woman he has sex with is a "mother nature" -esque character, I'd say. I'm going to do some research on what that parrot is saying...
The look and sound of the film was almost more engaging than the story or point of the film. I mean, it was just so esoteric that I found myself not even trying to put pieces together anymore. I just sat back and let that incredible score wash over me. Or I would just nod at the colors, lighting, sets, and great camera pushes, angles and cuts (those cuts also have something to do with going back and forth between the dream state and reality...One example is after he kills "The Songwriter", there's a jump cut to him back at this apartment. There are more examples we can talk about...).
This movie really reminded me of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet." The neo-noir feel, the soundtrack, the subversive and clandestine story, the surreal imagery. Lynch is always pushing the audience toward something, and that's how I felt with this movie. We were very much on Sam's ride with him and experiencing it with him. Like I said, unfortunately, it's a little too esoteric in spots, and that just disengages the audience. So, I wish I could have been in on it the entire time to fully appreciate it. I'll definitely give it another watch to see if I can find some missing pieces. Great film for filmwatchers.
17/20
Sexism, yes. Consumerism, yes. I didn't pay much attention to the allure of Hollywood or fame or whatever, but you're right--lots of that in there. It's probably hard to avoid in a movie that is so much about L.A.
ReplyDeleteWith the consumerism, I think it's a lot deeper than just being ABOUT the haves and have-nots...Garfield's character's attitude toward homeless people while having NO work ethic at all or any interest in really doing anything almost makes it seem like it's more about white privilege. Or white male privilege.
See, the "dream sequence" idea doesn't really stick with me. There are a couple of scenes that are very obviously dreams. Like, we see Garfield wake up immediately after them. One is the one where he sees the girl on the sidewalk eating a person and then barking at him. Obvious dream there. So either some of this is supposed to be taken as real (at least to Garfield) or it's all a dream (or a whole bunch is a dream) and the storytelling/direction just isn't very good. I lean more toward thinking it's more of an unreliable narrator situation. I think it's real in Garfield's character's head. You mentioned the scene where the gal is shot in the lake...no way that's real. I mean, it's never referred to again and Garfield doesn't even seem all that affected by the whole thing.
I've looked up this parrot thing and couldn't see a definitive answer. Nobody seems to really know. People even tried listening to it backwards, I think.
I completely disagree about the suicide. I don't think suicide is on his mind at all. He does, after all, think he's doing "mostly fine." I really don't know how to take the ending, whether it's a happy one or a sad one or an indeterminate one. I'm almost tempted to say that he's come to some realization and embraced something at the end that he was not willing to embrace at the beginning, but he's basically just having sex with a woman he was leering at and still has no interest in doing anything with his life. It seems like parrot woman is supposed to symbolize something, but I can't figure out what it would be that could possibly send this guy on an upward trajectory.
That songwriter scene...damn! As I think I told you, I was taking notes with the hope of putting this all together and eventually realized that that was futile. I just appreciated the ride.
Ha ha! I just reread my review. I didn't even try on this one, did I?
ReplyDeleteI mean, ok, maybe the entire movie isn't a dream sequence, but you admit that there are surreal, dream-like states we go in and out of. There are too many for them not to be a considerable part of the movie. When I watch it next, I might just think about linking only the "awake" scenes and the "dream" scenes and see what I get.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the parrot thing, too. Some think the bird says "ova" meaning egg (I didn't hear that). Some think it says Hollywood, and others think it says "murderer". Personally, I'm hearing the latter two more. It's got more syllables than just "ova", but I still can't pin it down. So, that may be a lost cause.
So you just don't see the amount of symbolism I do? You think the movie is all surface level except for the dream sequences? I don't think that lady at the end is random. I'd like to think something more transcendental has happened to Sam -- more than just he's embraced "something", as you say, at the end.
I would definitely give you the unreliable narrator idea, though. I've thought about it, and originally, I assumed that the Homeless King was the Dog Killer. But now I think the dog killer might be Sam. He was upset with losing his exgirlfriend who we find out way late in the movie is the contact lenses model on the billboard. The underground comic book talked about how a guy was burned and took it out on all the dogs. That could be Sam, which would make him fucking insane. Which would account for hallucinations, making connections where there are none, and the surreal moments of the movie. What do you think of that?
No, I think there's a lot of symbolism. Parrot woman definitely represents something more than just an older woman who likes birds and gets to sleep with Andrew Garfield at the end of this movie. I'm just not sure what she represents. The dogs, I don't believe, are even necessarily literal dogs. So yeah, lots of symbolism, I think, but I also think there are a lot of non sequiturs.
ReplyDeleteOh, Sam is definitely the dog killer. Now whether he killed a LITERAL dog can be debated. All the barking, that dream sequence...
What do you make of the owl woman? If there's suicide at all in the movie, I think that's what the owl woman could represent. He resists and flees from the owl woman.
I think watching this again and making a list of what is 1) obviously a dream, 2) what is probably not literally happening but Garfield's character thinks is happening, and 3) what is actually happening. I'm sure there would be different narrative strands--maybe even an entirely different plot--that emerge.
I have to work now.