Following – Wow! This Is Amazing

 (1998)

Following, stalking, sniffing, shadowing, whatever, that’s what The Young Man does around the streets of London. What’s his name? Sorry, not mentioned. And what for? Well, he’s a loner, waiting to be excited, and he considers himself a writer, so what do you think? Anyway, one of the important rules he sets for himself is to pick the target randomly. As he, however, breaks it helplessly later on, things go terribly wrong. Who’s following who? He has no idea until he goes to the police and tells what he thinks has happened.

This black & white film back in 1998, looking fairly old fashioned and rough, yet with a fresh and stylish non-linear story structure, is considered a British noir classic, that could get pretty confusing at the beginning, but don’t worry, don’t fall asleep, pay attention, and at the end, you’d go like…well, how’d you feel if you think you’ve seen the whole picture but you’re in fact just part of it?

Christopher Nolan is one of the filmmakers that I admire. Following is his first try as a director. If you’ve tried his Momento and The Prestige, you wouldn’t feel too much of a headache watching this one, but if you haven’t, try it too. You’ll be loving it.

The Prestige – Hey! Don’t Go Too Far

 ((2006)

 Are you watching closely? Nah, you’re not. You, as a matter of fact, don’t want to, coz you’d like to be fooled, and you just can’t help it. We’d all like to be amazed, coz we get tired of the world we live in, sometimes. I guess kids could’ve figured it out right from the beginning. Their imaginations are in a sense much more vivid than ours, adults’. If you ask a 2-year-old, could a man disappear at one end and reappear at the other in a jiffy? He’d probably go like, why not? Could there be a duplicate or something? Why not? Well, no wonder they say kids are more like philosophers. I’m not saying kids wouldn’t be glad to see The Transported Man trick. They would, but they wouldn’t be too surprised about the secret behind it. We, adults, such pathetic animals on the planet, trapped and stranded by the law of nature, would only try to work out the secret by using something we’ve always worshiped, something that we think distinguishes us from animals-logic. It’s got to be reasonable, so there must be either a double or-you may have guessed-a twin. Can’t be a duplicate coz it’s physically, scientifically impossible. You sure? Just coz you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Seeing is not always believing. Look at the stars and all the stuff up there, beautiful and real huh? They’re merely past tense. I can’t say I enjoy this film as much as I thought I would, but if you think you wanna break away from reality or the law of nature for a bit while, it’s well worth checking out.