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Rating: Form is substance. Films like this seem to exist precisely to remind us of that. A normal story (for cinema, of course), which has been rightly compared to that of Taxi Driver, normal characters, no major plot twists. Yet this work possesses a decidedly great artistic moment and hits its mark. And it is chiefly in the form, the style, the aesthetics where Lynne Ramsay’s work proves to be great. It takes just this to impress the attentive spectator. It is good for cinema to still be a matter of framing, of more or less elliptical editing, of particularly beautiful or disorienting music. It is all about aesthetics, but it demonstrates that the potential of this art (as of others, of course) is infinite and goes beyond the number of stories that can be invented. It is not so much a matter of stories. Not just, at least.
Violence is dismantled, refracted, deflated. There is no allure in the view of the hammer blows or the hits delivered by the bearded protagonist. Or rather, the aesthetic allure is given precisely by the willingness to demystify violence and almost ridicule it. A stratagem that worked perfectly in Drive, for instance. It is reintroduced here, with different and even more imaginative solutions, that attempt to narrate differently things already seen a million times. And so the slaps are reflected in a broken and blood-stained mirror, the hammer blows appear on the screen through security camera recordings, with silly music in the background. Or, even more extremely, the gunshots are not even shown as they travel from room to room. And it is in that absence that the fresh taste of the film resides.
There are no thrilling plots, the investigations and intrigues to find respective enemies are entirely absent. Because the intent is to concentrate on the human and existential side of the hitman. And so flashbacks are not lacking, his moments of fragility, affection for his mother, clumsiness in driving, the need for medication to stay standing. The funeral celebrations, the constant urge to commit suicide. As in the best crime tradition, from Michael Mann onwards, that man who kills is also the man fond of his mother, who would like to end it all but then always answers her calls. The two sides coexist at every moment, not alternately. A mama’s boy hitman is still a hitman and is always a mama’s boy.
The dialogues go in the same direction. No need to reiterate what is obvious, much better is silence, the grainy images of the city, the close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix’s bruised face. And then the music, which here plays a fundamental role. The beautiful tracks of Jonny Greenwood almost physically fill the scene, with surprising motifs capable of catalyzing tension in just a few seconds. And given the need to "spoil" the violent scenes, all the intensity plays out in the premises, the preambles, the corridors slowly traversed, the stairs leading to yet another shooting. And the viewer, bewildered, can realize how much the cinematic language imposes emotions, much more than the events themselves that unfold on the screen.
7+/10
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