Show Them What They Had

Following (1998)

Like anything else in this world, great directors must start somewhere. Steven Spielberg’s directorial debut was a film about a murderous 18 wheeler called Duel. George Lucas, before he won over the world with Star Wars, directed a sci-fi flick about a dystopian society titled THX-1138.  The director that I would like to talk about however, is a director that has redefined the Superhero genre and has reminded this critic a lot of the masterful Stanley Kubrick (The Shining). Surely it is helpful to the comparison when Kubrick is one of this director’s influences. The Dark Knight Trilogy, Memento, and Inception are just a few of my favorite films of Christopher Nolan and last night I finally had the pleasure of watching is critically acclaimed debut, Following.

The Story: A lonesome writer starts to follow random strangers while walking the streets of London. What starts off as just a few blocks slowly turns into following these people to their homes and places of work. However one day “Bill” (Jeremy Theobald) is confronted by a man that he has frequently followed around the city named Cobb (Alex Haw). Turns out that Cobb is a thief that takes Bill under his wing to further fuel the addiction that Bill has of spying on people. What seems innocent enough to Bill quickly turns into something much more than he bargained for.

The Good: This film packs such an emotional and suspenseful punch in only 70 minutes. This is the brilliance of Nolan’s debut. With such a short amount of time, Nolan rockets the audience through this journey and yet still has time for us to feel all the emotions we should feel for characters and plot if we were watching a 2 ½ hour movie. I believe that one way Nolan accomplishes this is by using a storytelling technique he uses again in his next film, Memento. With Memento, the storyline is broken up into pieces. You can see that Nolan plays around with this concept here in this film by telling different parts of the story in a mixed up fashion. By doing this, Nolan builds up wonder and questions to things that haven’t been revealed yet which keeps his audience watching. I don’t think this film would have been as good if the story was told in a linear fashion.

The Verdict: There was nothing bad about this film, I loved it and not because I am a huge fan of its director, but because of the impact it has with so little film. If you are a fan of Christopher Nolan and have not had the chance to see this film or never heard of it, please check it out. It is available to stream on Netflix and should be seen by all of you. On the same token, if you love Neo Noir films this is a great one to check out, even if you aren’t of fan of Nolan’s.

Worth Your Time.