Brian De Palma
The Black Dahlia

There is something about the figure of Elizabeth Short that captivates you. It is not the pin-up look from the '40s disastrously resurrected by Dita Von Teese. It's more than that. It is the allure of a pure and ethereal beauty stained by her own ambitions, of two icy eyes too childlike and a body excessively fragile to witness the ugliness hidden behind the glitzy world of show business and to take part in it. The Black Dahlia, before being a murder victim, was a victim of herself.

Perhaps the aura of allure surrounding Short derives from the fact that she really existed and was brutally murdered by an unknown criminal on January 15, 1947. The famous American writer James Ellroy noticed some similarities between the aforementioned crime case and the murder of his mother, and perhaps this drove him to write a novel named after Elizabeth's nickname, "The Black Dahlia." That's exactly how they called her due to her passion for the film "The Blue Dahlia" and her preference for black clothing.

Brian De Palma starts from these elements to create an excellent film shot in 2006. Nothing is missing: there's Ellroy's novel as the base of the screenplay, there’s a splendid Mia Kirshner to evoke the melancholic and sensual Elizabeth, and there's the black of her clothes, of the news, of the mystery. There is also a mid-20th-century Los Angeles reconstructed in Bulgaria, populated by detectives and police inspectors complete with Borsalino hats (Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart), femme fatales (Hilary Swank), platinum blond smokers (Scarlett Johansson). In short, all the premises are there (with ups and downs). Lee Blanchard and Dwight Bleichert, ex-boxers in love with the same woman, investigate the strange (and already mentioned) murder of the Black Dahlia, or Betty Short, whose body shows signs of sexual violence and a cut from ear to ear like a macabre clown. Through the testimony of a few friends and relatives, notably the amusing Rose McGowan, and the footage showing Betty during various auditions and an amateur porn video, the two uncover a sordid world of pornography, corruption, sapphic relationships, and obsessive maniacs moving under Hollywood's blinding lights, in which the rich and depraved Medeleine, Dwight's lover, is involved. The noir concludes with a tragic ending.

De Palma creates a varied but successful mix between Lynch's "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive" with the atmospheres of the best Hitchcock, not forgetting the homage to Paul Muni. He is helped by a respectable cast: (almost) nothing to say about Hartnett and Eckhart, who manage to portray the classic American investigators of the '40s who maneuver through smoke, fog, and speakeasies. The unexpected Swank - the bad girl but not disappointing, unlike Johansson, physically perfect for the role but seemingly unable to handle the mysterious woman with a perpetual cigarette between her fingers and the desperate housewife. Kirshner manages to outshine her, thanks to her excellent acting skills, despite appearing much less than the young Scarlett. De Palma also shows skill in highlighting the obsession the two protagonists have with the Black Dahlia, not coincidentally Dwight’s lover is Medeline, vaguely resembling Betty. The hypothesis of a homage to the controversial relationship that linked Ellroy to his mother cannot be excluded.

Because of this, much of the film rests on the sequences of black-and-white footage starring the Black Dahlia, an interesting technical device that seems to wink at Van Sant’s "Mala Noche" (See review... yes, I’m doing some self-promotion... so what?). It's unnecessary to dwell on the director’s skill in constructing scenes full of suspense and tension.

But let's also talk about the flaws. No need to reiterate the intrinsic expressionlessness of Johansson and some dramatic forced performances that definitely need smoothing. De Palma also exaggerates in providing an absolutely degraded vision of America in the last century: every character hides a peccadillo, perhaps even the extras and the assistant director. Finally, comparing it to the book would be, as usual, plainly tragic. But for the Black Dahlia’s blue eyes, this and more...