Under The Silver Lake

Ein unterhaltsamer moderner Film-Noir, der auf eine raffinierte Weise mit dem Zuschauer und seinem Bestreben, verborgene Bedeutungen zu interpretieren, spielt, die möglicherweise nicht einmal interpretiert werden können. Der talentierte David Robert Mitchell erzählt eine von Popkultur-Anspielungen vollgepackte Odyssee, die in einer Sackgasse endet. Dabei zitiert er in vielen Szenen stark Alfred Hitchcock und umgibt die geheimnisvolle Umgebung von Los Angeles mit einer Vielzahl bizarrer Charaktere. Andrew Garfield trägt die schwierige Geschichte souverän auf seinen Schultern und unterhält hervorragend. Ich hätte diese verspielte Geschichte von Mitchell gerne noch eine weitere Stunde genossen. (22.10.2018)

Ein langes Herumirren in LA, Treffen von Menschen und bizarre Erlebnisse, die aber in keiner originellen Hinsicht zusammenhängen und die auch dem Film nicht weiterhelfen. Die Noir-Atmosphäre im Film mit Verweisen auf Hitchcock und Lynch ist prima. Im Film gibt es auch sexy Mädels, insbesondere die Femme fatale, die Garfield den Kopf verdreht. Aus Drehbuchsicht funktioniert der Film jedoch nicht, man möchte mit einer Überschneidung von Neo-Noir-Elementen und Popkultur-Ornamenten arbeiten. Das Ende, dem die Zuschauer*innen mehr zutrauen, ist schwach. Ein prima (Popkultur-)Soundtrack. [Cannes] (17.05.2018)

Hobo´s ///. Mulholland Drive 2018 or WTF³, which will for couple of decades stimulate discussions, analyzes of God knows what including slow-motion sound recordings of a neighbor's parrot played backwards. But in contrast to similar self-serving onanist mindfuck's elusive super weirdness, this one has an insurmountable advantage that puts it alongside the aforementioned best lynch or Donnie Darko. It works on its own, without any effort on the part of the viewer to discover the encrypted meaning of the universe, purely as a hypnotically captivating expedition into the depths of fantasy madness / raised middle finger to all (everything). If you still wanted to know what the hell it's all about, I'd probably tell you “(im) perfection + pothead comedy + paranoid schizophrenia + Henry: Portrait of a murderer = a tribute to classic Hollywood and noir", but much (really much) more apt would be just to bark ... I mean woof, woof! (05.10.2018)

This neo-noir mashup will most probably anger even more people than The Image Book (because more moviegoers will go to the cinema to see it because of Garfield). Rather than creating something original, both films are based on recontextualising earlier media content and seeking hidden meanings in pop culture, which represents the basic frame of reference in Under the Silver Lake. Everything refers to something that someone else invented in the past. There are no originals, only copies and rewrites. Therefore, the story has to be set in Los Angeles, a city that has played a role in so many films that it has become a remake of itself. Mitchell’s third film holds together thanks to its absorbing atmosphere at the boundary between Vertigo and Chinatown and its pseudo-detective plot. It unfolds in such absurd, totally Lynchian mindfuck ways that instead of providing satisfaction from the uncovering of new contexts, it brings only gradually deepened frustration. Both for us and for the main protagonist, a paranoid slacker like from a nineties indie film, it almost involves two and a half hours of a delayed climax (the only satisfying interaction takes place during the prologue). Throughout its runtime, it is also immensely entertaining, while being a deferential and cunning pastiche of classic and post-classic noir films (and the music from such films), most of whose “shortcomings” can be interpreted as conscious and ironic work with certain conventions and stereotypes. For example, we can understand the reduction of the female characters to more or less passive objects as a critique of the “male gaze”, as that is precisely how the mentally immature protagonist, whose perspective the film thoroughly adheres to throughout, perceives women based on their media representation in films by Hitchcock and others. Under the Silver Lake is an ambivalent postmodern work which, thanks to its lack of a centre and its solid structure, succeeds in expressing the confusion of young people who try in vain to find some sort of higher meaning in all of the stories obscuring their view of reality. For me, it was one of the most entertaining movies of the year, but there is roughly equal probability that you will hate it with all your heart. 85% (03.12.2018)

Comparing the atmosphere of this film with David Lynch is a bit off the mark. The movie is actually not as strange as it looks at first glance. It’s rather a wannabe thriller with noir elements where people behave in strange ways mainly because they are simply weird. Andrew Garfield plays probably the weirdest role in his entire career and it would probably be better if he didn’t have it in his portfolio. For over two hours, something is going on that portrays the human vanity in Hollywood and it does so in such an inconspicuous manner that I don’t think the locals will understand that the movie is referring to them. The entire time, I was waiting for something a bit more meaningful to come out of it, but the good-for-nothing ending cut that off and essentially confirmed what this movie is about. It’s actually about nothing at all. (29.01.2019)