Shadows And Fog
"Rich! Deliciously eccentric! [A] brazen, irrepressible original!" -The New York Times
"Lovely! Poignant!" (The Wall Street Journal) and laugh-out-loud funny, Shadows and Fog confirms Woody Allen's "genius" with its brilliant portrait of the hopeless - but hilarious - tragicomedy of human existence. Boasting a dazzling "galaxy of stars" (Leonard Maltin) including Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Madonna, Donald Pleasence, Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates, John Cusack and Julie Kavner, Shadows and Fog delights with "all the fantasy and seriousness, mysterious construction and burlesque complications of a Shakespeare comedy" (Le Monde).
Recruited by an inept mob of vigilantes, Kleinman (Allen), a cowardly clerk, is forced to search for a notorious murderer - only to stumble upon a feisty sword-sallower, Irmy (Farrow), running away from the circus, and her 'clownish' boyfriend (Malkovich). Determined to help Irmy, and eager to escape the vigilantes, Kleinman abandons his search for the killer... or so he thinks. Rushing headlong into the odious night, Kleinman and Irmy are launching into a mysterious world of shadows and fog... from which they may never emerge.
Member Reviews
An Atheist Rendition - zaakistan
In typical Woody Allen fashion, he bumbles around from scene to scene to reveal a theory of his. This time it's that God doesn't exist, He's just shadows and fog and maybe a few trick mirrors.
Allen plays Kleinman who awakes to a mob trying to recruit him. There's a strangler on the loose and they want to catch him. The rest of the film is Kleinman wandering the streets fearing for his safety, questioning moral status quos, and rediscovering his love of the circus.
As always, the acting in a Woody Allen film is excellent (except maybe Madonna's role where she seems a little too self-aware). While the film is entertaining and well constructed, it does preach more than it should - it doesn't help that I don't agree with his theory.Too much stuff going on - Antoinette
Woody Allen is entertaining and very funny and he and the all-star cast are obviously very talented. The black & white setting seems very promising at first but the perpetual fog onscreen and in the plotline eventually got very tiresome to me. The whole movie seemed to constantly waver between the serious and the absurd to the point of making me dizz. Artistically this movie may have well been considered a masterpiece but perhaps I'm simply not intellectual enough to appreciate all the meaningful allusions. I am sure that underneath the obvious humour and flimsy plot this film touched on many serious subjects but frankly there seemed to be just a few too many for me to keep track of and none were clear enough to be defined nor seemed to lead anywhere in particular. I guess the entire movie itself was just like the title says "shadows and fog", personally it left me feeling just like Kleinmann, wandering around lost in a fog wishing I was in bed sleeping.a lot of skill in a two star film but ... I must have missed something? - Moir
I can imagine a skit in which someone goes on and on with this story (the telling punctuated with 'This will kill you ...' 'This is so hilarious ..' )and the listener keeps waiting for the punch line or for what is so funny ... after going on still longer, and the listener is still waiting for the justification of all the build up, the teller stops and says, 'I guess you had to have been there ...'
I felt like that during this film. The way it just did not work for me hardly felt like a professional film - it was more like an in-joke I did not have the 'key' for deciphering. Although actors and directing were skillful, the story felt like a careless remote swipe at something that made me think of a very bad diluted take off on Kafka and humour that was .... well, it made me think of that time a friend went on at great length and the point of the story kept receding farther into the distance as he told it. I guess I was not there and should've been there to have found it funny or worth watching {not that I really wish I had been there, to tell the truth, to follow out this image}.
Member Reviews
Read All...
An Atheist Rendition - zaakistan
In typical Woody Allen fashion, he bumbles around from scene to scene to reveal a theory of his. This time it's that God doesn't exist, He's just shadows and fog and maybe a few trick mirrors.
Allen plays Kleinman who awakes to a mob trying to recruit ...Too much stuff going on - Antoinette
Woody Allen is entertaining and very funny and he and the all-star cast are obviously very talented. The black & white setting seems very promising at first but the perpetual fog onscreen and in the plotline eventually got very tiresome to me. The whole movie ...a lot of skill in a two star film but ... I must have missed something? - Moir
I can imagine a skit in which someone goes on and on with this story (the telling punctuated with 'This will kill you ...' 'This is so hilarious ..' )and the listener keeps waiting for the punch line or for what is so funny ... after going on still longer, ...