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Filmed with a minimal budget, in black-and-white and mainly with handheld camerawork, Following is a brilliant exercise in independent filmmaking and psychological thrills. It’s short (a mere 69 minutes), involving and intelligent, presenting a deceptive plot with a complex editing technique that mixes up the timeline doubly as much as Tarantino. It’s a superb introduction to Christopher Nolan’s storytelling, style and infatuation with intricate plotlines, as well as further proof that a solid story with a few good twists and determined filmmakers can always win out over a lack of funding. In London, Bill, who also introduces himself as Danny (Jeremy Theobald), is a bit bored and lonely, so he starts shadowing or following random people just to see where they go and what they do. He’s between jobs, but fancies himself as a writer, and reasons his “hobby” as gathering materials for his characters. Like a secret agent of sorts, or a peeping tom, he slinks around targeting various people for observation. Watching human beings raises hundreds of thousands of questions, and he likes the idea of having a few answered. |
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He creates a few ground rules about following, but ends up breaking them when he gets caught by Cobb (Alex Haw), a well-dressed burglar. When the tables are turned, Danny decides to accompany Cobb on his next job, rifling through an apartment where he learns that it isn’t about money – it’s about the adrenaline rush and the idea of interrupting people’s lives, taking a look at personal objects and private treasures and letting them know what’s been done. They get caught, but make a hasty getaway, giving Danny a taste for the voyeuristic form of vandalism/theft/intrusion. He’s intrigued, excited, and addicted. But he has multiple goals underway – the houses they burgle aren’t exactly random, nor are the people they target. One of the characters is a beautiful blonde (Lucy Russell), who is mixed up with a wealthy gangster. As things start heading south for Danny, Cobb has a few surprises of his own… The exchanges are frequently clever, witty, marked by rapid cuts and always fuel the story, which is told in director Nolan’s signature style – out of order. A precursor to Memento, Following features bizarre editing that divides the story into multiple pieces at different points in time and plays them back in an alternating pattern – some moments are even repeated for clarity. It’s occasionally hard to follow, but keeps the suspense high and the questions abundant. When Danny appears bruised and bloodied in one non-chronological sequence, it keeps the viewer guessing as to how he ends up in that condition, especially when foreshadowing insinuates disastrous possibilities. “Do you ever worry about being caught?” asks Danny to the calm, collected Cobb. “Why else would I do it?” The thrill of engaging in something illegal, mysterious and invasive is enough influence for the young writer, who keeps up the disconcerting activities with his new accomplice up to the very end, where he realizes that everything he thought he was in control of has been deviously spirited away. - Mike Massie
Click HERE to read the Review of Inception Click HERE to read the Review of Memento
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