World War II has just ended. An American soldier-journalist, Jake Geismar, returns to Berlin to cover the main event at Potsdam: the meeting of Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman and Joseph Stalin. Secretly, he desires to meet his old lover, Lena Brandt, with whom he had an affair when he was posted in Berlin a couple of years before. However, he is roped into a conspiracy when his driver and Lena Brandt’s current lover, Patrick Tully, is murdered.
‘The Good German’ is a film noir made in the style of film noirs made 60 years ago. Its B&W gloomy rendition by Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh is quite fascinating, though this required some concentrated viewing. The film even has two of my favourite stars – George Clooney (Jake) and Cate Blanchett (Lena) – who look as if they actually belong to the ’40s. But that’s where the good things end.
The plot and the film’s screenplay, together, take the film down. The story is presented from the individual perspectives of the three lead characters (Tobey Maguire, besides Clooney and Blanchett), and it unfolds one part at a time… in segments. The first segment belongs to Tully/Maguire; the second to Jake/Clooney; and the final segment to Lena/Blanchett. Every time the perspective changes, some new information is revealed about the conspiracy, breaking the continuity of the narrative.
In the process, the characterisations become poor, taking away much of the pleasure of watching a film noir. Overall, ‘The Good German’ is rather disappointing.
30 December 2007
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2 comments:
The movie was a total disappointment - despite Clooney.
Have you seen The Quiet American? Not the Fraser/Cain version but the original Film-noir? It is similar in setting (a war-torn divided nation), but is very well done.
Not seen either version of 'The Quiet American'. Shall look them up. My favourite is Jean-Luc Goddard's 'Breathless' ('A bout de souffle') starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
From the old American lot, my favourites are Humphrey Bogart films: 'The Maltese Falcon', 'The Big Sleep' and 'Dead Reckoning'.
From the newer lot, my favourite is Roman Polanski's 'Chinatown'. Stephen Frear's 'The Grifters' is good too, but slow and not as thrilling as 'Chinatown'.
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