Shadows and Fog
There is this rule of thumb that I like Woody Allen films with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton the most, followed by the 2000’s Woody Allen movies without any of his favorite actresses, followed by older films without Woody Allen. That leaves only one category of his films, which is those that include him and Mia Farrow. Normally, I rather dislike those, but “Shadows and Fog” presents a rather surprising exception even though it did not reach my favorites.
I didn’t know from the beginning that Woody Allen was the type who pays homages to other movie-makers in his films a lot. It was also no surprise that I came to appreciate his films the most which were mostly his own, like “Manhattan” or “Match Point”. Luckily, I ended up seeing “Wild Strawberries” before “Deconstructing Harry”, “8 1/2” before “Stardust Memories” and, in this case, a few Pabst, Murnau and Lang movies before I saw “Shadows and Fog”. Pip stated quite aptly that an homage can only be a good movie if it can stand on its own feet and be enjoyable to somebody who does not know the original. If my memory doesn’t fail me, Woody Allen’s tendency to “copy” other filmmakers and make references both to himself as well as to others is something critics have disliked about him, saying he isn’t creative enough on his own. As for me, since I always saw the originals first, I must admit that I cannot judge upon these films separated from the homages anymore. I love homages, and considering Woody Allen’s yearly output, I’d say he is amazingly creative.
For me, “Shadows and Fog” was a wonderful nod to 1920’s silent film, and has almost all its elements. A lady in distress, dark streets, a circus, dirty bars, a doctor who can do strange things, prostitutes, killers, a little bit of supernatural phenomena and finally a mob chasing the protagonist at the end of the film. This imagery is so complete that Woody Allen’s character almost feels a little out of place here – his typical exasperated, complaining little man who is cowardly and hypocritical, yet honest about himself. But then again, Mia Farrow is even worse here – who would ever want to believe that somebody would pay 700 dollars to sleep with her? Ignoring the mildly unpleasant clash between the atmosphere of the film, which is almost as intense as in “Stardust Memories” and Woody Allen’s openly sexual trademark humor, this film was mostly an enjoyable story, and not too much more. My favorite was the “I don’t know what I am supposed to do” joke, which I thought was almost as memorable as “the product of my loins” from “Scoop”.