One thing, maybe
the thing, that makes
The Good German perplexing is that
its best quality, the meticulous recreation of a 40s international noir ala
Casablanca (1942) or
The Third Man (1949), is
also its biggest weakness.
There are some
beautiful and authentic images in the film, but there are others that verge on parody (mostly those involving
rear projection; sorry no stills or screen grabs available - I popped the film back into the mail before thinking I might want it). By itself, that wouldn't be a problem except that director Steven Soderbergh and writer Paul Attanasio haven't rethought the films they reference so much as attempted to reproduce them, but with the jarring addition of language, violence, and sex that wouldn't have been allowed in the 1940s. Unlike, say, homosexuality (and, really, race) in
Far From Heaven (2002) or the disappearing blandness of Ed (Billy Bob Thornton) in
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), the updating and revisioning of genre in
The Good German is trivial at best, and clumsily tacked on at worse. Arguably, what the film does that could not have been done in 40s is the presentation of sympathetic, or at least other than venal, German characters, but, for whatever reason, I did not find myself even thinking about that possibility until the hour or so after having seen it. Ultimately, the film ends up feeling more like an aesthetic exercise than anything else and that detracts from its thematic elements, and also turns its actors into living wax museum pieces (which is not to suggest that the cast is anything but game, just that they, more often than not, come across as parts of the mise-en-scene more than people).
Originally posted on:
Short-Circuit Signs