Shadows and Fog (1991)
Director: Woody Allen
I have been
a big fan of Woody Allen for a long time now and have watched a
decent percentage of his movies, I hadn't heard much about Shadows
and Fog but the premise sounded interesting, especially for a Allen
film so I thought I'd give it a go.
The
narrative cross cuts between Kleinman played by Woody himself at an
almost caricature level of neuroticism and Mia Farrow's character
Irmy who works at a travelling circus as a sword swallower, these
stories eventually cross with the link of a serial strangler that's on
the loose on the foggy streets.
If you are
familiar with Woody Allen's work I can imagine that the plot summary
I just described would seem odd, the setting is a definite departure
from his usual contemporary New York setting, not to say he hasn't
done period pieces before but for him to do something that on the
surface looks like an old German expressionist film is kind of
unusual.
All I can
really say about this film is that it didn't leave me
thinking it was especially good or bad which is almost worse than
being terrible, it was just forgettable. This was Allen's highest
budget movie with the elaborate set design and period features and
not to say that this film doesn't look very impressive because it
does, it nails the atmosphere it's going for but in terms of story and leaving you
with something to think about, it is lacking.
There are
some serious underlying themes but they never really gets past
Woody's fears of a godless universe and death, these are themes that
he explores repeatedly and to be honest if the film isn't doing it
for me, I just find it annoying.
Overall, I
think it's cool for a film like this to be in his filmography but it
just feels wishy washy and would be immediately forgettable if it
wasn't for the setting. I would only recommend this if you'd be
interested in seeing how Allen's mind would translate to Jack The
Ripper kind of setting but if not, I wouldn't bother.
5/10
22/10/2015
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