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Rating: It is cold in Chandor's New York. The streets return to being gray, the buildings leaden like the sky. New York is dark and brutal, full of criminal means that hijack drivers and trucks to take away loads and loads of fuel, but robberies, rapes, and killings also multiply. It's 1981, the black year of the Big Apple, one of the most violent according to statistics. In this "asphalt jungle" reminiscent of Huston, the business of entrepreneur Abel (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Anna (a splendid Jessica Chastain) risks sinking under the blows inflicted by petty crime.
After the debut of "Margin Call" J.C. Chandor returns to extol the inherent imperfection in American society, this time without reaching high finance, but focusing on the classic example of the "self-made man." An immigrant, Abel self-constructed his fortune, climbing hand over hand to the top until he reached a very respectable position, until he had the funds to buy more land and afford a bigger and more luxurious house. By his side is the indispensable "great woman" who is the hand and mind of her man: Anna is the daughter of gangsters and knows how to get out of not-so-rosy situations. In the classic story of ascent and descent (but then again, not so much), Chandor plays his film by digging deep into the soul of the American dream and blatantly contradicting its two fundamental souls: on one side, an Abel who does not want to break the law because "I am a respectable man," and on the other, the same Abel who already knows he has broken the law. There can be no success, money, and power if you follow the "straight path."
Disillusioned almost to the point of being disturbing, "1981: Indagine a New York" has recently arrived in our theaters with "only" a year and a half delay. Too great the fear of producers to distribute a "non-marketable" film, which in fact cost 20 million and grossed less than 10 worldwide. But beyond the marketing choices in a market now devoured by blockbuster superheroes, Chandor's third endeavor is a film too real, heartfelt, and visceral to be considered by those who act with the sole logic of accumulating money. Precisely what is being whipped by Chandor, who under the false guise of an "atmospheric" thriller denounces the compromise of capitalism in the USA. Splendid in this sense is the symbolism that links two scenes in the film: in the first, Chastain acts, perhaps driven by her past, and shoots a dying deer, while Abel, passive, had remained watching without having the strength to do what had to be done. Choose and move on. On the contrary, in the explosive finale that echoes Anderson's massive critique in the film "There Will Be Blood," the one who shoots is the one who has no choice, who has been defeated by history.
"A Most Violent Year" is a harsh film and so realistic that it becomes disturbing in its refusal to provide answers and explanations. The screenplay (by Chandor himself) is intricate without necessarily changing the cards on the table and without having to distribute twists here and there. Making use of a calm direction, intelligent in laying on top of a fine photography, Chandor simply shoots a film that is a reportage of everyday life, even if we are several decades back in time. His is an opaque and disenchanted view, real and realistic because it carves with images the compromises of capitalism and therefore of the American dream. It is power, in its political force, the driving element of human action, and the two main characters of the film are intimately attracted to it. The ultimate goal is power, and the epilogue could not have been otherwise...
A bit of melodrama, a bit of thriller, a bit of old-style noir, and a bit of European rhythm, the third feature film by Chandor stands on the trail of anti-system films like "Gangs of New York," "There Will Be Blood," and "Cosmopolis," but does so without descending into citationism. Chandor's is a very square film, perhaps too much so, almost screwed onto its verbosity that says everything and nothing, but it is again cinema of crisis and downfall. The actors act as chiseling to a troubled work that will continue to have no feedback in this society of ambition. Destiny written considering the themes addressed...
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