The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
15th February 2007
This might be worth seeing once, but definitely not twice or more.
I cannot quite estimate what kind of movie this is – a comedy, or a detective story, or just a drama. The plot is weirdly progressing in the improper sequence of events, following the single simple act of a quiet man. I could think of this movie as of the Oedipus moral fables, promoting the idea that even a single wrong act can literally ruin your life. But if it was this idea in the movie, than it is humorously over-exaggerated. The single word which comes to mind is “very unlikely”, but the movie is trying to convince you that if not real, all the events are actually probable.
The weirdness of fiction-reality contradiction, enhanced by the disproportional “quiet man” and “action effects”, adds something special to the movie. The narrative style is relaxing, but the sense of events is not; events just happen, but slowly start looking like a doom on Ed, the main hero and the quiet man.
I’d say this movie is slightly above average, and with no doubt – quality-made.
