Mesmerizing and mysterious and so authentically made.
Its hard not to delve into the script right from the first frame, as the reels goes on, characters become more mysterious, more secrets are revealed and more questions raised, is it about water and the power to hold water or something much beyond that, if that's one question, then why is Jake so interested in things like Evelyn Cross.
Jake Gittes is played by Jack Nicholson and he is done an exceptional job and so did so many others, in fact all of them must be applauded for acting. Now for such supreme acting to be extracted, the director takes a toll and here we have Roman Polanski at the helm and its his take on the script thats makes it more dark and interesting.
Robert Towne has produced a screenplay thats is superbly written, fast paced for its 140 minutes length and becomes more interesting till the last frame, dialogues are written so well, that they are mystique when we hear and are so self explanatory when it happens in the film. The best dialogue that astonished me is "She is my sister and my daughter" does anyone expect this all through the film, I very much doubt. The pace helds it up well and is written with enough moments of dark humor, its not sarcastic or finding flaws in system, but finding flaws in person who are a BIG part of the system and are the main drivers of it. So it's psychological more than incident based. I believe, Robert Towne wrote it as incident based screenplay but Roman Polanski who has made even THE PIANIST as an extremely psychological film is who raises above the script and makes it a masterpiece.
I will go with 5/5 and a best writing for Robert Towne, best acting for Jack Nicholson and best direction for Roman Polanski are my awards. Just watch it please.
Also, I got to know of this film through the equally well adapted hindi film, "Manorama Six Feet Under" which is well worth a watch will review that later.
One of Roman's best films that can be watched any number of times. Its a slow suspense-thriller and definitely one of the films one should not miss. Nice review
ReplyDeleteYes undoubtedly one of the best dark films ever. Thanks for comment HAri
ReplyDeleteVery interesting thoughts! While I agree with your analyses for the most part, I still feel that a rating of 5 is just too high, for the movie is not free from flaws. The movie is Polanski's tribute to Film Noire. The acting is simply superb with a special mention of Jack Nicholson. Chinatown has also been remade into a Hindi film called Manorama Six Feet Under starring Abhay Deol. Btw, if you like Chinatown then I am sure you would love The Ghost Writer and The Ninth Gate - two of Polanski's most underrated movies :-)
ReplyDeleteYes Murtaza Ghost Writer and Ninth Gate also are good...I like Ghost writer a bit more....and yes Polanski is one of the greatest psychological directors from Rosemary's baby to Carnage, he played with psychology and the intentions of characters better than many directors
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