A black and white feature film about ordinary people who can no longer be ordinary. The whole film has no climax. It records a criminal like a running account, and it is not disturbed.
Billy Bob Thornton plays an upside-down husband, in front of Ed, the barber number 2, in the shop left by his wife's father, a bland man who can be quickly drowned in a crowd, not smoking Just cutting hair, or like an invisible man.
Wife Cohen plays his wife, an overactive, ubiquitous woman who has an affair with her male boss, Dave, and dies before trial.
Eddie, the barber, kills his wife's boss Dave without abusing the law, only to be sentenced to death for another man.
Some people may say that watching the entire film will feel very boring, there is neither a reversal of the plot nor a wonderful criminal method.
But after reading it, I felt that I found a vacancy about "Rillington Place".
The serial killer John Christie played by Tim rose, in just three episodes, intercepted several clips of his criminal career, and the part about his trial only accounted for less than 1% of the proportion, his life was over, but About his heart, it is unknown. After reading it, I always feel that there is a vacancy that cannot be filled-why did he kill? What was he thinking about? He must not be so ordinary, there must be something special about him? He took the secret into the dirt!
A large piece of blank space makes people unable to stop, tossing and turning, trying to find out what this serial killer is! Suppose he must have written his secrets in a diary, or lie quietly in someone's mailbox in the form of letters. Of course, this is just our crazy wild thoughts, and we get no response at all.
So after watching "The Man Who Wasn't There", the vacancy was finally filled. I thought it was probably the meaning of "The Man Who Wasn't There" to the audience, and I was looking for the answer.
Not all criminals are high-profile, and not all crimes are designed to be seamless. Many times, those criminals are ordinary people.
That's what Ed in "The Man Who Wasn't There" is like, he's taciturn, he listens more than he talks, listens to his inner monologue, I think he's an unfathomable person, the world is disguised in front of him No matter how good it is, he can see through, for example, the ambiguity between his wife and boss Dave.
For example, he knocked on the extortion letter in a hurry, blackmailed his wife and boss Dave for $10,000, walked to the second floor of the hotel calmly, knocked on the door of foreigners who were looking for investment everywhere, and took the still warm Cash invested in dry cleaners, an emerging industry.
So the label about him being calm and discerning was put on like this.
The direction of the film makes me think that he is a person with a story, and he will definitely break out somewhere, but there is just a lack of a fuse.
From his extortion letter, his life began to change. His wife lost the opportunity to climb to the management because of the 1000000 dollars, and got drunk at his cousin's wedding. After returning home, his inner monologue , interrupted by a call from boss Dave.
After hanging up, he went to his wife's boss Dave's department store, and I have to say about his mental quality or his numbness to the outside world. When the boss Dave was going to strangle him, I really thought he would He died like this. Even at this juncture of life and death, he didn't have too many expressions. When the audience was still sympathizing with him, he solved the boss Dave with a clean knife.
After returning home, he resumed his interrupted inner monologue before he started, and there was no panic after the murder at all. This quality properly stunned the audience.
The next day, he was called out of the barber shop by two spy, and his performance was still perfect. His wife was imprisoned as a suspect in the murder of Dave, the boss .
In front of the lawyer, he unhurriedly admitted that the person was murdered by him, but this kind of bland and expressionless statement makes people think that he is eager to let his wife get away with it. You can see his disguise. What a success!
His wife was defeated by his fragile heart and died in prison. At this time, his dullness was interpreted by everyone as excessive sadness!
But the fact is that he is very revengeful and does not have much sympathy. His wife's derailment is a thorn in his heart and a needle in his eye. He has never regretted what he did, but his inner narration was exposed to the audience. I can't tell the people around me!
Later, he fell in love with Betty, a young girl played by Scarlett Johansson. I think this is probably the only place in the whole film where people feel that Ed, the barber, is alive. He goes to Betty's house on time every day to listen to her playing the piano. She contacted the famous piano teacher, imagined to be Betty's manager, and looked up like this, this is Ed's dream at this time!
Ed, who broke the merits, gave everything he had, was blind and only me, he thought she was a good girl, he thought her piano talent was extraordinary, but this was just his subjective assumption, maybe this was blinded by love, and This love that came and went quickly was completely ruined with the car accident!
Before he could sort out his chaotic mood, Ed was arrested, and the most exciting part of the whole play was the part where Ed was tried for killing the foreign investor!
This defense, which had a great chance of winning, collapsed in his brother-in-law's question "what kind of man are you?" and a heavy punch, and Ed was sentenced to death!
This is probably what the audience wants to ask, "what kind of man are you?" What prompted him to keep calm, and the audience watching the film couldn't keep calm. Why is Ed still "doing things calmly"?
The director must have made this movie with this original intention in mind. Compared with the criminal's subjugation, everyone wants to know what the criminal has gone through? What are you thinking about?
So this "The Man Who Wasn't There" gave the answer-often the most important parts are always missed, such as the rambling inner monologue at first glance!
There is no earth-shattering conspiracy, and no deadly method of death.
It's just that life likes to go round and round, like a flying saucer, it will always turn to you, and there is always a way for you to recognize what you have done. For example, Dave, the boss, killed the investor, so Dave was terminated by Ed, then Ed was finally sentenced to death. This is a closed-loop circle, interlinked, without a trace of excess, step on every link and every point It's just right!
Ps: 1. The official version of "The Man Who Wasn't There" is a black-and-white version, which was shot on color film and processed into black-and-white in post-processing, so the details are richer than traditional black-and-white films. The picture quality is very silky, like a classic book with no sense of the times.
2. The Coen brothers are very good at paying tribute to the classics. In addition to this beautiful black and white "The Man Who Wasn't There", the western "True Grit" is also very classic. In short, the Coen brothers are a great treasure, well worth digging.
3. The death method of Mrs. Cohen in "The Man Who Wasn't There" made me unacceptable for a time. After all, she is a "tough guy" woman and always expects a reversal in the back.
View more about The Man Who Wasn't There reviews
