TI H
I can't give a pretentious review of this material, using words I don't understand, like "German expressionism," but even my peers, the general public, hated this movie. I loved it from beginning to end. Woody Allen is playing his usual neurotic self, using self-depreciating humor to create our bumbling protagonist, a low-level office worker named Kleinman. In the middle of the night, a vigilance mob of concerned citizens wakes the sleeping Kleinman up from his bed to enlist his aid in hunting down a serial killer. They send Kleinman out alone on a foggy night without telling him what part he plays in their plan to capture the killer. It tickles me pink how he spends the entire movie wandering aimlessly, completely confused. //// Three storylines run parallel to Kleinman's: a quarreling circus couple, a whorehouse, and a women who cannot afford to feed her baby. We end the film in a "zen" way, which will either upset you or make you smile. I fell on the smiley side of the fence. My guess is you, the reader of this review, like most viewers, will hate SHADOWS AND FOG. After reading the comments of others, I feel like everyone else has watched a different movie than I have. I'm stunned. As much as I want to go along with the crowd, I can't. I adore this film.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
10/29/24
Full Review
Alec B
An interesting failure. If 70%-80% of the dialogue had been cut out the visual elements would have taken over the narrative which, given the kind of homage this is, would have been more engaging.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/10/24
Full Review
Aldo G
I stopped Woody Allen movies movies years ago because I tired of watching him play the same neurotic, self-deprecating lead. That's what he does again in this thinly plotted movie. But, I loved the look of this black and white, German expressionist film and the supporting cast, most given very little, to do is colorful and interesting. If this were in the hands of a writer/director who really cared about developing the story and the characters/cast this would have been a masterwork.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
09/25/23
Full Review
Matthew B
The two main themes found in Woody Allen's movies are summarised in the title of his 1975 comedy – Love and Death. If I was to tentatively suggest a possible third theme that occurs, albeit less frequently, I would propose murder.
It is not just that murders occur in Woody Allen's movies. It is rather that three Allen films are specifically about murder. It is the leading subject matter of those films, and not just a device to move the plot along. In Manhattan Murder Mystery, this takes the form of comedy. In Crimes and Misdemeanours, the morality of murder is seriously considered.
Shadows and Fog lies between the two. It is essentially an absurdist comedy that falls somewhere between Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett, but the film's content can also be examined seriously without the risk of seeming too humourless.
The film's ability to be both comic and serious (or possibly neither?) may explain why it was box office poison. This was unfortunate because the film had much invested in it. It had an extraordinarily famous cast appearing in supporting roles. It was made using the largest set ever built in New York, making Shadows and Fog the most expensive film that Allen had made to that point. (The frugal studio later recycled the set for other films.)
To summarise the plot of Shadows and Fog is not easy. It seems to be designed to frustrate the casual viewer with a series of episodic setpieces that utterly fail to resolve any narrative point whatsoever. As I said, the plot owes much to Kafka. Even the story's hero is a K, just as in Kafka's most famous novels.
This is Kleinman (Allen). As his name suggests, he is a little man. He is a timid clerk hoping for a promotion from his tyrannical boss, whom he calls ‘Your majesty', but we know he will never get it. He has a cold and unloving fiancée, and a landlady who mothers him and thinks he should marry her. There is a bitter ex-girlfriend whom he jilted at the altar.
Those incidental details establish our hero as an everyman, if you assume that being weak and spineless is the normal human condition. For many people, perhaps it is. As is often the case in comedies about this type of man, he is thrown into an impossible situation in which nobody could reasonably expect to cope.
Kleinman has various difficulties to deal with. He is trying to find the vigilantes to learn what his part is in their plan. He is trying to capture the murderer, or at least prevent himself from falling victim. In an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, he is trying to prevent himself from being falsely accused, but somehow everyone keeps looking in his direction.
Some of the jokes are very funny. There is a splendid music score that includes music from Kurt Weill, setting the right serio-comic note for the film. There is also some beautiful black-and-white photography inspired by the movies of Murnau, Lang and Pabst.
The movie can also be read as a metaphor for death, with religion failing to find the answer and resulting in more killings, and only the illusions of art offering some longer claim to posterity. When asked about the audience's love of illusions, the magician Armistead gravely intones, "Loves them? They need them – like the air!"
I wrote a longer appreciation of Shadows and Fog on my blog page fully explaining my theory in the last paragraph in more detail if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/shadows-and-fog-1991/
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
About a bookkeeper wandering in the night streets to join a vigilante mob to capture of a serial strangler, Woody Allen's homage to to German Expressionism, Ingrid Bergman, Franz Kafka and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu is at best described as shrouded in a stupor of maundering jabberwocky.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
An interesting failure. If 70%-80% of the dialogue had been cut out the visual elements would have taken over the narrative which, given the kind of homage this is, would have been more engaging.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
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