The Man Who Wasn't There

The last thing on his mind is murder.

2001 film by Coen Bros.
This is a must watch noir because it is nearly perfect.

It is not difficult to recognize Coen Bros. style,
because their story-telling technique are always brilliant.

I watch No Country For Old Men and Paris Jet'aime before, I like it.
But, I have to say, I prefer The Man Who Wasn't There very very much more.

The highly praised No Country For Old Men is a boring movie for average audience, most of the scenes are silent and Coen Bros minimize the use of score.

But The Man Who Wasn't There is a beautiful movie,
Beethoven's Piano Sonata sounds just fine and fit to every single scenes in the movie.

One thing that impressed me the most is the cinematography.
I never see a movie that the camera works so clean and neat.
The movement, the angle can really capture your attention.
Very straightforward, very smooth, very masterful.

Billy Bob Thornton's acting is fantastic in this movie,
and his voice is really sexy (I hate to use this word) for a film noir narration.

"Me, I don't talk much....I just cut the hair."

How cool?

Yeah, he act as a barber in the movie,
and it is memorable that he was smoking everytime he appear in his scene.
He did mention some great metaphors about hair, very meaningful.

Tony Shalhoub (Monk) who acted as the expensive lawyer, has steal the show everytime he talk.
It's like Edward G.Robinson's character in Double Indemnity.

Scarlett Johansson takes a supporting role in the movie, not bad.
Everytime she plays the piano, and the music come in, it takes your breath away.

UFO are mildly shown in the movie.
Frankly I am not really sure what is the intention and motive behind that, but for a black&white film noir, this is something unique, something exaggerate, which gives a big contrast with the rest of the scenes, and it add color to the movie.

This movie is originally filmed in color and transferred back to black&white.
I am not sure how did they do that, and why did they do that.

Did Spielberg filmed Schindler's List in color during shooting process?

Anyway, for me, this movie is a must watch, it is excellent,
everything you can see from the movie, the props and set, are so accurate to the time frame.

If I tell you this is a 1940 film, I am sure you will believe that!!!
But well, unless you can recognize the movie stars.

Another great film comes in to my favourite movies' list,
this is very stylish and amazing!

The Butterfly Effect

A young man who suffer memory black out,

is able to travel in time supernaturally everytime he read his diary.

It is always a bad idea to 'travel in time', you can easily found weakness and hole in the plot.
Lake House starring by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves is the best fucked up example.
But Heroes did it brilliantly!!!
Scriptwriting for these kind of story is very hard, it kills your brain cell, and it usually end up in a big mess.

But what so brilliant about Butterfly Effect is, the movie success to avoid these complex concept but yet remain the excitement of 'travel in time' idea.

The story put the characters into a painful childhood, a fucked up teenage life.
By doing that, the director have a very huge space to spin here and there, twist here and there.

As we can see, there are many childhood and teenage memories that allow Ashton Kutcher to move forward and move backward freely.
Oh yeah, this movie is starring by Aston Kutcher, my favourite actor, I simply love him.

It is hard for me to put aside his comedian image, but damn....
He can really act in Butterfly Effect!!!
In my opinion, this is his best movie ever.

Back to the story, basically it's all about how a young man trying to clean up his mess cause by his teenage life.
He has a supernatural ability to travel in time, and he is able to redo his past and try to fix things in order to please everyone he had hurt.
But things never turned perfect, everytime he changes something for a good intention, someone he love (his mum, his friend, his childhood sweetheart) have to suffer.

The story drag Ashton Kutcher from one miserable situation to another,
and it is really sad to see the person you love suffer so much,
but you can't play the role as God to rescue them.

But one thing very special about his character is, he is able to 'possess' his own body when he travel back to the past, and travel back to the present.
What I am saying is, when he travelled back to his childhood, he is still he himself, the young and mature man.
And when he travel back to the present days, he still able to keep his memory for what he have changed and done.

Does this contradict to his memory black out background?
I am not really sure.
If Im not mistaken, in the present days, he mentioned that he has 7 years without memory black out.
Has he fully recover?

But the thing is, his character himself does contradict to the butterfly effect.
If you have change something in the past, you should remember the past, but you definitely wont remember that you have fixed the past, right???

But after all, the female fortune teller told us, Ashton Kutcher's character do not have a soul, and he do not have a lifeline in this world, right???
Does this make the story reasonable???

Well, this is just a movie, ofcourse it is fun to think about it,
but even if you didnt, that does not spoil the entertainment.

All of these concepts and ideas, screetching back and forward, consequences and situation,
are simply a naughty story-telling technique by scriptwriters to play around with audiences mind and brain!!!

There are several alternative ending for the movie, I am not sure which one is the theatrical's version.

Spoiler alert:


First ending ,I like it where Ashton Kutcher kill himself when he was still a fetus.
This is clever. It shows that everyone in his life can live happily without him.

But back to his mum, she lost her baby once again,
does this pain equal to her pain to see his son lost his arms?
What I am saying is, this does not make any differences you know....
His mum could feel bad and get sick again.

But the director quickly end the movie by showing montage of happily ever after.
This does not allow audiences to think.
So, it seems like the ending is perfect, but frankly I think it is not, anyway I still like it.


Second ending is Ashton Kutcher travel back in childhood to break up with his childhood sweetheart.
This is a very logic ending. Nothing special.
But well, does that resolve his childhood sweetheart from being abused by her father?
You see, things can't be perfect, but the movie can make it happen.

Others ending are basically caused by this incident, where Ashton Kutcher meet his childhood sweetheart again on the street....and this is what going to happen....

1. He stalk her.
2. He ask her for a coffee.
3. He does nothing and continue walking.

All of these ending suggests that he still remember the girl, but he is not pretty sure about that.