David Fincher's 'The Killer': An Existential Masterpiece in the Shadows of Noir

The Killer - David Fincher - 2023

David Fincher is my favorite filmmaker. Every time he makes a movie, it is a gift. This one, especially so. Earlier this year, I said that Oppenheimer was the best movie to come out in my lifetime. Well, it might be the best film of the year, but I'm pretty sure The Killer is my favorite. By the way, this surpasses 2007 as the best film year I've been cognizant of, and these two pictures give me a No Country for Old Men vs. There Will Be Blood vibe. Yeah, that movie that won all the awards was dope, but the other was the best movie of the decade. I'm going on record; it's the kind of film that gets the Academy's attention, doesn't win shit, then years later, everyone collectively realizes it's a classic. We shall see come awards season. 

Based on the French graphic novel series The Killer written by Alexis "Matz" Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. Stars Michael Fassbender as the hitman, also Arliss Howard (who I love), Charles Parnell, Kerry O'Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. This is the second of four movies Fincher is making for Netflix. The first was Mank, released in 2020. 

The gist: a hitman finds himself in some shit after botching a hit. He's now playing cat and mouse with his former bosses (and himself), who nearly killed his girlfriend trying to get to him. So "nothing like this can ever happen again," he goes on the offensive, globe-trotting, ducking in and out of shadows, insisting that what he's doing isn't personal. Yeah, sure. 

It's this guy's version of self-help. You know, throw yourself in your work, meditate, do some yoga, tell yourself lies, take up existential philosophy, quote some Aleister Crowley (I named a rooster Aleister Crowley, no shit), listen to the Smiths, shoot a guy in the face. Just like mine, except with extreme violence. (I have said verbatim several things this guy says through the course of this film, but never really considered myself a psycho).

The world portrayed is in no way glamorous. This world is cold. The film opens with him prepping for a kill, which is all just mundane shit, part of his day. People that come for you have no names or faces. You don't know who they are, and they don't know you. But that bullet still has your name on it. People don't understand why he is there when he shows up to do his deeds. 

This isn't just run-of-the-mill action. The one choreographed fight scene is fucking brutal, all out, and devastating. As Fassbender walks away, he repeats one of his mantras, "This is what it takes." He's saying this to us, the audience. Fuck.

First watch, I thought it was a masterpiece, but it was a mid-tier Fincher. Now, I have it fourth and rising. Zodiac, Se7en, and Social Network ahead of it. But just barely. Surpasses Gone Girl and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, another of his misunderstood home runs. 

Made me think of Paul Schrader whose work also depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis leading to a violent, cathartic event. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and directed the films  Cat People, Affliction, Auto Focus, The Canyons (the insane Bret Easton Ellis written film staring Lindsay Lohan and porn actor/rapist James Deen who was called "Bill Cosby of porn"), and most recently The Constant Gardner. He got into some shit after the 2016 election for calling the upcoming Trump presidency "a call to violence" and that "we should be willing to take arms. Like Old John Brown." Such earned him a visit from the NYC Counterterrorism Bureau. So that's pretty cool. 

Looked to see if he had anything to say about it. He did. "Is style its own validation in narrative art? Or should it serve another purpose as well? Fincher's film is a masterclass in film style, but there is a pharase (sic) for this in Texas. It's called 'all hat.'" He also called Fassbender's character "the Chatty-Kathy of hit men."

Fincher himself called it a "B-movie." A dressed-up, near-silent assassin film that's sharp, pulpy, and doesn't pretend. Style, cynical worldviews, pessimism, these are things Fincher films ooze. The images of the various nocturnal cities suggest a Dostoevsky nightmare, fragments of artistic tradition to stave off spiritual despair, laden with new-wave references to other movies and directors. nostalgia is very much in Fincher's mind. Fincher gives us many allusions (most notably Le Samourai by Jean-Pierre Melville). Throughout, unorthodox narration (very much a noir trope) demonstrates the ambiguity of human motives. Commodity culture is a wasteland (product placement is everywhere, making his job both easier to perform and harder to get away with). The film is a critical and self-reflexive analysis of contemporary life, a dream image of bygone glamour repressing as much history as it recalls and service of the cinephile and commodification.

Asked several people what they thought this movie was about and got completely different answers, which were also different from mine. That's what makes Fincher a genius. It's different based on where you are and what you're dealing with. For me, it was obviously about the fallacy of control and the lies we tell ourselves. Also, a meditation on what it takes to be great. Also, why give a shit enough for those sacrifices. This is where the existentialist fires up.

"Fate is a placebo," he says at the end. "The only life path is the one behind you." Then he flenches when he says he is one of the many, just like us, the audience. That shit isn't going to last. This whole time, the killer is a political pessimist experiencing existential anguish, erasing his old life and taking up this new one that is the antithesis of everything he says and does. However, he is the ultimate unreliable narrator. At the end, you see a man expressing a passion for the past and present but also a fear of the future. Dreads looking ahead instead tries to survive by the day and, when unsuccessful, retreats into the past, i.e., its erasure. He is one with a lack of clear priorities, experiencing his first taste of insecurity. So he concentrates on violence, perversion, and decay, what he knows. His cauldron of inarticulate rage we get through his noir-like offscreen narration that's highly poetic and ironic, reinforced by his protection and love that we don't see and is likely bullshit. This love, who is stuck with at the movie's end, has destroyed his real identity. Ideologically, deep down, he is a contradiction, and all his talk incoherent. 

Yes, if you can't tell, I love existential art and film noir. A character withdrawing into despair and bitter disengagement that's my jam. Couple that with an atmosphere of determinism and irony, irredeemable evil, exposing the underside of American character, then I am rock hard. "I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck." 

Asteroid City - Wes Anderson - 2023

★★★★★-Since The Royal Tenenbaums, I've been all in on Wes Anderson, seeing every film opening weekend. He is one of maybe 10 directors who I'm going to make a spectacle of when they have a movie come out. Have I had a great seeing all of them? Fuck yeah, I have. Asteroid City is no exception, though I am not sure if I really understand it. 

The film is pretty complex in the way that The French Dispatch is complex. Where we get the story of a publication in The French Dispatch while we are also given some of the best stories to come out of that journalism, in this movie we are told about the production of a play, showing that play, and weaving other stories within them. 

This is what you call a metatextual approach, yeah, I went to grad school. First the movie gives us a broadcast of the story behind the play which segues into the first act which follows people as they arrive at a Junior Stargazer convention. Between acts, we are then given behind-the-scenes moments with the actors, director, writer, broadcaster, so forth, who are giving this production a life of its own while offering the audience (real [us viewing the movie] and imagined [the 1955 television viewer]) a glimpse into the creative process. Beyond this, not to give too much away, the film is really, deep down, a lighthearted search for meaning, complete with nuclear testing, alien encounters, and ray guns. And that is just within the play. 

Cast includes most of his usuals and some newcomers to his universe. They include: Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell (loved him in this, by the by), Hong Chau (she the front of house manager in The Menu), Margot Robbie, Matt Dillon, Hope Davis ( The Daytrippers, American Splendor), Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Rupert Friend (he's one of the stars of the show Homeland), Maya Hawke (nepo baby child of Ethan Hawke and Uma, she was in such flicks as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Fear Street Part One: 1994, Do Revenge, she also played the part of  Robin Buckley in Stranger Things), Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Liev Schreiber, Fisher Stevens (he's the white guy playing the Indian guy in Short Circuit, he's also in Succession), Tilda Swinton, Tony Revolori (he was the bellboy, the lead, in The Grand Budapest Hotel), Edward Norton (who looks pretty exactly like William Faulkner in this), Steve Park (he is probably most remembered for being the Asian guy on In Living Color, he was also in Do the Right Thing, Falling Down, Fargo, and The French Dispatch among other things. I suspect this might be a breakout role), and Jeffrey Wright. Also, a bunch of children, Anderson loves him some witty wiz kids. Among them, the main one, this kid Jake Ryan, is the most notable and is probably destined to be in all kinds of Wes Anderson future projects. Also, Sophia Lillis from It, and this Grace Edwards girl who plays ScarJo's daughter. 

I love a meta movie, and I love some Wes Anderson. This one is full of his signatures and feels like the culmination of his work. Not sure if I'll like it more or less with more viewings, but more viewings are definitely required. Didn't crack my top three Anderson movies, (The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums) but right now I'd put it at about four. We'll see if I feel better about it down the road. 

The Dead Don't Die is the greatest movie of all time

The Dead Don't Die. So. Crazy Jim Jarmusch fan. Dead Man and Ghostdog are two of my faves. Wrote about both of those films in college for this dope religion in film class which was probably my favorite class in undergrad. Expanded my paper on Dead Man in grad school. Whenever he comes out with a movie, I am totally watching the shit out of that movie. This one, though, was not one of my faves. Still a REALLY solid flick, just not as enjoyable for me as I would have liked. Oh well. Can't all be winners I guess.

Rotten Tomatos Consensus: The Dead Don't Die dabbles with tones and themes to varying degrees of success, but sharp wit and a strong cast make this a zom-com with enough brains to consume.

Was crazy excited about this flick which is a pretty standard zombie comedy/horror production but with a phenomenal cast. Gist is that the earth has been thrown off it's axis because of polar fracking which has fucked with the way the earth rotates. This caused, spoiler, aliens to become interested in our planet and either they or the fracking somehow causes the dead to rise again. We follow the inhabitants of a small town going to shit because of, you know, the zombie attacks and what have you. The movie stars Adam Driver from BlacKkKlansman and the newer Star Wars movies, Bill Murray, and alum Chloë Sevigny from Kids and Zodiac and Jarmusch flick Broken Flowers with Murray and a bunch of other flicks that are dope, as the police officers trying to keep the town's folks alive, Steve Buscemi as a right-wing asshole, Austin Butler whom I've never seen but was tapped to play "The King" in an upcoming bio-flick, Danny Glover, pop star Selena Gomez, Carol Kane from Scrooged and Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt, Caleb Landry Jones who is so hot right now (he was the brother in Get Out and the kid who gets his ass kicked in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Rosie Perez from Pineapple Express and White Men Can't Jump, punk rocker Iggy Pop, Wu-Tang founder turned actor RZA, Tilda Swinton of Narnia fame who was also the Ancient One in various Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and raspy, baritone singer Tom Waits. Almost all of these actors, except the younger ones, have popped up in Jarmusch's work before.

Polarizing film for me. Sometimes great. Sometimes hated it. A lot of fourth wall breaking which also polarized me. The times I liked it were with the Sturgill Simpson song "The Dead Don't Die" and Adam Driver talking about reading the script and knowing what happens to them late in the movie. With Simpson's song, Murray talks about it sounding familiar and Driver tells him because that is the theme of the movie. Should have left it at those two as the other times it was deployed I was sort of like, "okay, this was funny." A little too cute with it, I guess.

Overall the cast was great and sometimes it was extremely funny. It was an enjoyable watch but low on my list of favorite Jarmusch films, but I still think he is dope and will watch every one of his flicks. Think that the ending, which, spoiler, involves aliens, sort of put a bad taste in my mouth. Probably not going to rewatch it every couple of years like I do with several other of his flicks but I will watch it again. Feel it was worthy of a second look. May feel different about it then, ya know.