MovieChat Forums > Frantic (1988) Discussion > Never seen it, is this a film noir?

Never seen it, is this a film noir?

posted 13 years ago by lettherightonein
5 replies | jump to latest

a fake reputation is all a man has.

[–] LightningLad 13 years ago

I consider it to be a noir, in the Hitchcockian sense, so if you think of Vertigo as being a noir, or any kind of movie where a regular man is suddenly drawn into a baffling rabbit hole of mystery due to a mix-up, than this is.

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[–] princeofnewyork 12 years ago

It feels and acts like a Hitchcock film but its clearly Polanski's. Once its gets going I swear you'll be intrigue and mystified like Walker.

[–] uscmd 11 years ago

Almost all of the true film noir films were done in black and white, Even some done after color was available. Its certainly in that style. Dark, brooding, Intense.

[–] Alphonse_van_Worden 11 years ago

There's absolutely no way in which this movie can be called a noir if you have even the slightest idea about the history of movies. Today some people seem to believe that noir movies are either all those in black and white or all those with a dark content. Film noir was a name given by French critics to a specific post war style in American movies. It lasted from the late forties to the late fifties. Watch four or five of them and you'll understand what it is all about, but no, no, no. Frantic is a very good and recommendable movie but the hell it's noir.

[–] UHK 10 years ago

Technically it's not film-noir because as it's said before it's not from the pre-defined noir era. But it's a neo-noir movie which are defined as movies that mostly show the characteristics of film-noirs. As i recall some of those characteristics of film-noirs (and also neo-noirs of course) are; really dark atmosphere, crime themes, a male lead getting deeper in serious trouble, mysterious femme-fatals or at least dangerous women, more and more complicated incidents happening slowly revealing the big picture and not a happy ending.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! After watching, it looks like it has those in the list except the happyish ending. The girl is dead but he reunites with his wife and goes back home. The girl is not exactly a femme-fatal but she is a criminal and she is sometimes unpredictable and dangerous. Male lead, dark atmosphere, crime theme, getting deeper in trouble and other stuff are exactly there. The movie "Chinatown" (another classic of Polanski) is also considered to be neo-noir.