An end-in-itself

 FOLLOWING (1998)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Christopher Nolan's astonishing directorial debut, "Following," is all the more incredible because it has been made by assured hands. You feel that every key moment, every notable scene, every line of dialogue has been implemented and punctuated to make what could have been a standardized noir tale of a writer in and over his head in trouble into something poetic and dazzling. Its nonlinear narrative helps make the case for it as well, something adopted into Nolan's later works.

The Young Man known as Bill (Jeremy Theobald) is a wannabe,scraggly writer who is searching for characters to write a novel about. Every day, Bill wanders the streets of London and follows one person to their destination, and then another and another. His rule is to follow people up to a point and not get involved with their lives, only to observe. The rule is broken when one mysterious man with a duffel bag, Cobb (Alex Haw), catches on to being tailed by Bill. We discover Cobb is a small-time burglar who wears gloves and seems to want to disrupt people's lives more so than steal anything (placing panties from another burglary into a man's coat pocket for one). Bill is a hirsute mess who tags along with Cobb on these burglaries, with Cobb resembling a well-groomed, smooth criminal. Or is Cobb really much of a criminal? And what about the blonde woman (Lucy Russell), a semi-femme fatale, whose apartment they burglarize - could she have a boyfriend who is some sort of gangster? 

Due its nonlinear structure, we see Bill looking like a burglar in one scene with long stringy hair and in another scene, he has short hair, shaven and looks as well-groomed as Cobb. Sometimes we see him after he has been visibly beaten in the face, and then we go back to his scraggly appearance and so on. This keeps us on edge and makes us wonder about Bill's involvement and how far he might have gone in these burglaries. "Following" begins with Bill being interrogated by the police which we assume would be the ending of the film, yet it keeps us guessing at every turn. 

Unpredictable, contemplative and existential in its black-and-white imagery and its notion of following unknown people as an end-in-itself , "Following" is grade A neo noir though it is more of a hark back to the French minimalist noir of the 1960's, specifically Robert Bresson's remote and indifferent though no less fascinating "Pickpocket" from 1959. "Following" is a few notches above "Pickpocket" but both would make a great double-feature for showing how futile and miserable small-time thievery really is. An end-in-itself.