We finally got around to watching Brick last night, and what can I say, but: wow.
It's got to be the most confident and precisely executed movie I've seen since Cache (albeit a very different beast). The whole thing was just perfectly pitched. I think the transposition of noir genre onto the high school setting works amazingly well. They're certainly not afraid to play it for laughs, as when the hero tells the vice principal (played by Richard Rowntree!): "Write me up or suspend me, but spare me the lecture." But I think the exagerrated life-or-death set up is a fairly neat allegory for how high stakes life feels during your teenage years. And, of course, the often stylised language of the gumshoe is not a million miles from the deliberately impenetrable way in which teens often converse. Indeed, the dialogue is outstanding.
During its cinema release, I was a little suspicious of the idea of teenagers pastiching Sam Spade, but I really regret not seeing it on the big screen. It's got wonderful, low-key production design, and it's masterfully shot and edited, with excellent use of sound. It achieves this kind of impressionistic rhythm whereby what you don't see is as important as what you do; and what you do see you cannot be certain of. Sometimes, it feels like your watching a succession of stills - which, of course, in one sense you are, but it plays on this to the max.
It's certainly the most impressive feature debut that I can think of since Memento. I think it's pretty much a perfect movie - there's not a frame out of place and it's brilliantly paced - it's difficult to find fault with it. It's like watching The Usual Suspects by way of Bugsy Malone (tho mercifully without the song and dance routines, and more towards the former end of the spectrum than the latter). But then I imagine that description will put off as many people as it will excite
The truth is: it's like everything and nothing. Really highly recommended. Anyone else feeling this?
It's got to be the most confident and precisely executed movie I've seen since Cache (albeit a very different beast). The whole thing was just perfectly pitched. I think the transposition of noir genre onto the high school setting works amazingly well. They're certainly not afraid to play it for laughs, as when the hero tells the vice principal (played by Richard Rowntree!): "Write me up or suspend me, but spare me the lecture." But I think the exagerrated life-or-death set up is a fairly neat allegory for how high stakes life feels during your teenage years. And, of course, the often stylised language of the gumshoe is not a million miles from the deliberately impenetrable way in which teens often converse. Indeed, the dialogue is outstanding.
During its cinema release, I was a little suspicious of the idea of teenagers pastiching Sam Spade, but I really regret not seeing it on the big screen. It's got wonderful, low-key production design, and it's masterfully shot and edited, with excellent use of sound. It achieves this kind of impressionistic rhythm whereby what you don't see is as important as what you do; and what you do see you cannot be certain of. Sometimes, it feels like your watching a succession of stills - which, of course, in one sense you are, but it plays on this to the max.
It's certainly the most impressive feature debut that I can think of since Memento. I think it's pretty much a perfect movie - there's not a frame out of place and it's brilliantly paced - it's difficult to find fault with it. It's like watching The Usual Suspects by way of Bugsy Malone (tho mercifully without the song and dance routines, and more towards the former end of the spectrum than the latter). But then I imagine that description will put off as many people as it will excite
The truth is: it's like everything and nothing. Really highly recommended. Anyone else feeling this?
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