I could enjoy Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog without really taking it in as being as superior a work as his other 1992 film, Husbands and Wives. Both are a bit like cinematic experiments, H&W being a very loose and improvisational-feeling take on couples in the style of something like Cassavetes or Bergman, and S&F being an all-out homage to expressionism in Germany, with touches of Kafka, horror and film-noir (hell, that's all the film is, the latter I mean) thrown in for good measure. But watching Shadows and Fog becomes a little more tedious as it goes, and a laugh or two and the usual heaping pile of Woody wit doesn't compensate for there being only the ingredients for a story, not a connection of one. We get Woody Allen as Kleinman (or is it Klienman), who gets woken up in the middle of an ultra-foggy night to find a killer, but then finds himself on the other side of the investigation after the murder of a doctor (Donald Pleasance). Meanwhile sexual liaisons go on with John Malkovich and Mia Farrow's characters, just not with one another (one with Madonna and one with John Cusack).
All the while scenes go in and out, and Allen is without a doubt very much in love with the period, actually the period put to film, and uses style to its excesses. One example of this is Farrow's visit to a whorehouse, where Allen's camera repeatedly goes around and around in a circular move around the women in profile. There's no real reason to do it just for the sake of having a 360 shot, and this is part of what's good but unfulfilling about the picture. The style is laid as thick as the fog, where motivation is totally lost for the sake of a more 'moving' change for the characters, like Malkovich and Farrow finding the baby. There's a nice lot of whimsy with magic towards the end too. But seeing Allen in his usual nervous talky mode doesn't match up as well as he thinks it might, or that his intention might have been. It's not spoofing, because there aren't good enough jokes out of the atmosphere. I liked the Kafka side to it, and its all-star cast gets some points for sticking to the material, but it doesn't stir up much thought, or act that memorable in the way that other comedies by the filmmaker work. It's neither boring or dour, yet a trifle compared to Allen's other 'experiment' that year, which aims for much more within its limits.
All the while scenes go in and out, and Allen is without a doubt very much in love with the period, actually the period put to film, and uses style to its excesses. One example of this is Farrow's visit to a whorehouse, where Allen's camera repeatedly goes around and around in a circular move around the women in profile. There's no real reason to do it just for the sake of having a 360 shot, and this is part of what's good but unfulfilling about the picture. The style is laid as thick as the fog, where motivation is totally lost for the sake of a more 'moving' change for the characters, like Malkovich and Farrow finding the baby. There's a nice lot of whimsy with magic towards the end too. But seeing Allen in his usual nervous talky mode doesn't match up as well as he thinks it might, or that his intention might have been. It's not spoofing, because there aren't good enough jokes out of the atmosphere. I liked the Kafka side to it, and its all-star cast gets some points for sticking to the material, but it doesn't stir up much thought, or act that memorable in the way that other comedies by the filmmaker work. It's neither boring or dour, yet a trifle compared to Allen's other 'experiment' that year, which aims for much more within its limits.