NOLANISMS

Managed to squueze in 'Following' by Christopher Nolan recently. That brings my Nolan grand total to 3 - Memento, The Prestige and yus yus, the afore mentioned. So I have assumed the role of a despairing dilettante and proceed to spew forth my observations.

Nolan has a signature style. Obsessed protagonists who are battling their demons, and all the while Chritopher Nolan is exultantly disregarding chronology. Oh, chronology! Nolan paces back and forth in time, builds up a crescendo of confused events and conflicting appearances, only to end with those precious moments of clarity (although I DID have to watch Memento twice. Erm.)

Nolan's movies have to be watched and regarded with concentration. Else you will miss a beautiful line here, an ostensibly insignificant glance there that will strike you later once the jigsaw pieces fit.

Take for instance, The Prestige ( spoiler beckons so proceed ONLY at your own risk). When Hugh Jackman is reading Christian Bale's journal he cannot for the life of him understand why Bale does not claim responsibilty for his wife's death. Only when Jackman realises that Bale had had him the entire time, are you transported back to that seemingly inconspicuous line. Lovely lovely.

For the record I liked The Prestige the most. It was racy. The concluding minutes were fanatstic with the characters and the audience alike revelling in sudden realisation. And the moment of 'abracadabra' was phenomenal. No, seriously.



Following was interesting. The beginning of the movie very discreetly gives away the apparent similarities of the protagonists, revealing its significance in the conclusion. And then onwards begins the story of obsessive stalking. I would have enjoyed it more thoroughly though had I not already watched a cheap Bollywood imitation starring Kareena Kapoor, Shahid Kapur and Fardeen Khan (but the scene of the bullet knocking off Kareena Kapoor's hair bun was killer!! Every pun intended :))







And there you have it. My Nolanisms.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

dude, friggin' Batman Begins. Go watch.

Nolanisms it seems.

Salil said...

Prestige was awesome! There were so many moments of brilliance, more than enough for a single movie..! :)... I have still have to follow up on Following... No thanks to you... :P

suraj sharma said...

also, you might want to catch "The Illusionist", so much for the modern director's disregard for chronology, some people can still make good movies outside the "brainfuck" genre.

aandthirtyeights said...

In whole-hearted agreement with anonymous - Batman Begins. Go watch.

And you should check out Insomnia, even if only for Al Pacino!

Sudhir Pai said...

agree with anon...
batman begins is good.and try and get the dark night comics. yet to figure out what you meant by nolanisms though!
:)

iz said...

Ewww Kareena kapoor like kills anything for me! Can't stand her.

MISSquoted** said...

anonymous: wokay! and I was only trying my hand at some reular ol' word play :)

salil: erm. acquiesce mostly.

surajsharma: yes yes, I might definitely want to watch. and FYI i think christopher nolan handles the chronology disorder rather well...as I mentioned before the anticipation of the complete jigsaw puzzle warrants a careful watch!

aandthirtyeights: Oh yes, insomnia sounds rather nice (and not just for that pacino god)

sudhirpai: refer some comments up :)

iz: welcome welcome. and kareena kapoor is bearable. no, seriously. a half decent actress with limited options in bollyland...genes matter!!

Szerelem said...

Ummmmm..........I saw the twist in Prestige a mile away!!!!

and Istanbul - when? how many days?

niTin said...

Hello, fellow Nolan Fan.
There is hope in the world. Or so it seems, whenever I watch Nolan (or Aronofsky, don't get me started on him).
Just wanted to say that I also happened to have read "The Prestige" albeit after I'd watched the movie. And I must say, the book is pretty good in its own right. And Nolan doesn't rape the book, i.e it's still readable.
And even though I think you've already read IMDB trivia for "The Prestige", here's a tidbit-“Priest insisted that 'Christopher Nolan' direct the film, based on his love for both 'Following' (1998) and 'Memento' (2000).”
And that wasn't a bad judgment call at all!