Saturday, October 27, 2012
In a Lonely Place as Not a Stereotypical Noir
It was interesting to watch film noir that did not typically fit into the mold of classic noirs. Laurel was in no way manipulative towards Dix, or in general. The whole time I was waiting for Laurel to turn out to be the murderer of Mildred; however, neither her nor Dix turned out to be guilty. Laurel starts a romance with Dix and assumes that he didn't kill Mildred, yet she is still afraid of him because of his tough-guy mentality and attitude towards life. Dix is a classic noir antihero; he is a run-down screenwriter, who has had a few incidents with the police over the years. He is dark character and a suspect for Mildred's murder since he saw her last the night she was killed. Another thing --- the police aren't seen as corrupt in this film. It was depressing to see Laurel and Dix's relationship crumble not as a result of the murder, but as a result of Dix's uncontrollable inner rage. Of course, since it is a noir, relationships are destined to fail, and the film's ending is never going to be a happy one.
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There was something about Laurel's character that I thought any second something's gonna surface that shows her as having a dark underside. I thought came off actually as having the personality of a femme fatale moreso than other female characters we've come across in this class. I guess a part of Noir is for unexpected things to happen- so that could be viewed as something unexpected.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was going to be revealed that Laurel killed Mildred. Laurel has a certain mystique about her which did not allow me to trust her as a character. I felt that I could trust Dix more than I could trust Laurel since there was no mystique surrounding his predisposition for violent outbursts. Dix mainly embodied the role of the hard-boiled noir anti-hero, and it seemed too obvious that he would have been responsible for Mildred’s murder.
ReplyDeleteOnce it is revealed that Kesler killed Mildred, I thought for sure that Laurel was going to kill Dix before she could find out that he was innocent. I was very surprised that neither Laurel nor Dix died in the film’s end. To me, this made the film more realistic and showcased the negative impact of how suspicion and paranoia drove the two apart from one another.
I agree with the twist of who killed Mildred in this movie, but I do feel as though the cops were still, in a sense, corrupt. Throughout the movie we saw all the suspicions placed on Dix, mostly because he had prior history with the police. At no point did we suspect Kesler as the murderer and this shows the corruption of the police towards the noir "anti-hero" in the film.
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