up there with The Big Lebowski for pomo neo-noirs. i love films that are set in an ambiguous time/space, and kinda de-centre technology (It Follows, Enemy). loved the constant references to hollywood lore, and the constant subversions of noir tropes: garfield’s character is like The Dude, but at a point in time when contemporary capitalism has developed to a degree wherein it is no longer to simply abide. the whole conspiracy angle of the film, i am a bit less sure about…i wish that it had been a bit less conspiratorial, a bit less fanciful, and a bit more real. the themes of rich / poor divide, and of bourgeois conspiring, are very real; but the whole thing with vintage cereal boxes, coded messages in pop songs, and underground bunkers…it was effective, and it does penetrate through the opacity of the rest of the symbolism the film is rife with, but it really left me salivating for something a bit more directly and explicitly critical of the real systems of production that structure society.
this made me realize how much i love film noir, which i already watch a lot of…i think it’s about time we have a neonoir comeback.