Under The Silver Lake

Ein langes Herumirren in LA, Treffen von Menschen und bizarre Erlebnisse, die aber in keiner originellen Hinsicht zusammenhängen und die auch dem Film nicht weiterhelfen. Die Noir-Atmosphäre im Film mit Verweisen auf Hitchcock und Lynch ist prima. Im Film gibt es auch sexy Mädels, insbesondere die Femme fatale, die Garfield den Kopf verdreht. Aus Drehbuchsicht funktioniert der Film jedoch nicht, man möchte mit einer Überschneidung von Neo-Noir-Elementen und Popkultur-Ornamenten arbeiten. Das Ende, dem die Zuschauer*innen mehr zutrauen, ist schwach. Ein prima (Popkultur-)Soundtrack. [Cannes] (17.05.2018)

This neo-noir mashup will most probably anger even more people than The Image Book (because more moviegoers will go to the cinema to see it because of Garfield). Rather than creating something original, both films are based on recontextualising earlier media content and seeking hidden meanings in pop culture, which represents the basic frame of reference in Under the Silver Lake. Everything refers to something that someone else invented in the past. There are no originals, only copies and rewrites. Therefore, the story has to be set in Los Angeles, a city that has played a role in so many films that it has become a remake of itself. Mitchell’s third film holds together thanks to its absorbing atmosphere at the boundary between Vertigo and Chinatown and its pseudo-detective plot. It unfolds in such absurd, totally Lynchian mindfuck ways that instead of providing satisfaction from the uncovering of new contexts, it brings only gradually deepened frustration. Both for us and for the main protagonist, a paranoid slacker like from a nineties indie film, it almost involves two and a half hours of a delayed climax (the only satisfying interaction takes place during the prologue). Throughout its runtime, it is also immensely entertaining, while being a deferential and cunning pastiche of classic and post-classic noir films (and the music from such films), most of whose “shortcomings” can be interpreted as conscious and ironic work with certain conventions and stereotypes. For example, we can understand the reduction of the female characters to more or less passive objects as a critique of the “male gaze”, as that is precisely how the mentally immature protagonist, whose perspective the film thoroughly adheres to throughout, perceives women based on their media representation in films by Hitchcock and others. Under the Silver Lake is an ambivalent postmodern work which, thanks to its lack of a centre and its solid structure, succeeds in expressing the confusion of young people who try in vain to find some sort of higher meaning in all of the stories obscuring their view of reality. For me, it was one of the most entertaining movies of the year, but there is roughly equal probability that you will hate it with all your heart. 85% (03.12.2018)

Comparing the atmosphere of this film with David Lynch is a bit off the mark. The movie is actually not as strange as it looks at first glance. It’s rather a wannabe thriller with noir elements where people behave in strange ways mainly because they are simply weird. Andrew Garfield plays probably the weirdest role in his entire career and it would probably be better if he didn’t have it in his portfolio. For over two hours, something is going on that portrays the human vanity in Hollywood and it does so in such an inconspicuous manner that I don’t think the locals will understand that the movie is referring to them. The entire time, I was waiting for something a bit more meaningful to come out of it, but the good-for-nothing ending cut that off and essentially confirmed what this movie is about. It’s actually about nothing at all. (29.01.2019)

Hobo´s ///. Mulholland Drive 2018 or WTF³, which will for couple of decades stimulate discussions, analyzes of God knows what including slow-motion sound recordings of a neighbor's parrot played backwards. But in contrast to similar self-serving onanist mindfuck's elusive super weirdness, this one has an insurmountable advantage that puts it alongside the aforementioned best lynch or Donnie Darko. It works on its own, without any effort on the part of the viewer to discover the encrypted meaning of the universe, purely as a hypnotically captivating expedition into the depths of fantasy madness / raised middle finger to all (everything). If you still wanted to know what the hell it's all about, I'd probably tell you “(im) perfection + pothead comedy + paranoid schizophrenia + Henry: Portrait of a murderer = a tribute to classic Hollywood and noir", but much (really much) more apt would be just to bark ... I mean woof, woof! (05.10.2018)

Delightful. For many it will understandably be a hard to swallow trip through a town that for the film has the same meaning Bethlehem has for Christians. Mitchell leads the attention unpretentiously, the viewer must focus on the details and the small pop-cultural references to fully enjoy the raggedness and self-reflection of a unique world, where every corner offers something different – always a vague clue, both for the viewer, who’s pushed to several interpretations, and for the protagonist who guides them in that world. The ending is not as dramaturgically solid as the best of Lynch and the runtime feels a bit excessive, but the consistent pace and the coherent author’s signature put the thumbs very well up in the final appraisal. It’s the first film where I didn’t mind Garfield, and if he keeps on choosing interesting projects that offer cinephiles food for thought like this, I might end up liking him. And that applies twofold for Mitchell. 80% (12.01.2019)

Ein unterhaltsamer moderner Film-Noir, der auf eine raffinierte Weise mit dem Zuschauer und seinem Bestreben, verborgene Bedeutungen zu interpretieren, spielt, die möglicherweise nicht einmal interpretiert werden können. Der talentierte David Robert Mitchell erzählt eine von Popkultur-Anspielungen vollgepackte Odyssee, die in einer Sackgasse endet. Dabei zitiert er in vielen Szenen stark Alfred Hitchcock und umgibt die geheimnisvolle Umgebung von Los Angeles mit einer Vielzahl bizarrer Charaktere. Andrew Garfield trägt die schwierige Geschichte souverän auf seinen Schultern und unterhält hervorragend. Ich hätte diese verspielte Geschichte von Mitchell gerne noch eine weitere Stunde genossen. (22.10.2018)

Considering I once coughed up a script about something similar, it's safe to say that the film should speak my language, except that's exactly the aspect where Mitchell and I are terribly at odds. Mainly in the way the film constantly tries to create that surreal atmosphere of meta-time, but permanently undermines it with constant specific pastiches and quotes that go to such extremes as to use painted canvases as backgrounds. And yet he still couldn't get his way and shoot on film, so we're watching self-conscious references to noir practices in ugly and unforgiving digital, where the paltry budget (8 and a half million) stands out several times worse. In a world populated with Inherent Vice, Brick, or David Lynch, Under the Silver Lake is not worth considering at all. (13.03.2019)

A strangely atmospheric neo-noir that is imaginatively reminiscent of David Lynch or Nicolas Refn. The hypnotic style, with some very R-rated "what the fuck" moments, is borderline cringe-worthy at times, but David Robert Mitchell has a remarkable ability to sustain that edge honorably. The script spouts one pop culture reference after another, and to some extent, in deciphering all the references to other writers' works, the viewer can well identify with the central character, who is also grappling with all sorts of ciphers and hidden meanings. A film you will either throw away or be fascinated by. (27.10.2020)

A hallucinatory neo-noir that pokes fun at audiences who revel in solving unsolvable movie puzzles, conspiracy theories and the internet generation's unhealthy obsession with pop culture. How much you enjoy it or get bored with it depends on how much you accept its absurd logic. It's reminiscent of the logic of the old adventure video games from the 80s and 90s, in which you as the player explored different locations collecting various items and had to figure out how to combine them to progress further. The way you combined them was often illogical, which drove you insane with an obsessive urge to constantly combine everything with everything (“is this old magazine a regular magazine, or can it be used for something important?”). But you didn't rest until you found out, for example, that if you scratched the James Dean statue, the King of the Homeless would appear and lead you to a mysterious underground. So does the protagonist of Under the Silver Lake, whose search for a missing neighbor leads him to unravel a pop culture super-conspiracy behind the curtain of picturesque Los Angeles. After he starts discovering coded clues all around him (in commercials, songs, and movies), he can't help feeling that everything is connected. David Robert Mitchell, the director, deliberately frustrates his audience with the aforementioned absurd logic, but manages to reward them with an immersive atmosphere and an entertaining play on audience expectations and genre conventions. (16.09.2019)