Review of Following

Bill likes to follow people. It isn’t a sexual thing or anything like that; he just picks someone at random and begins to follow him or her. He wants to see where they go, what they do, and who they talk to. He wants to be able to pick a face out of a crowd and come to know who that person really is.

It’s an exercise in character development. Bill wants to be a writer.

Then Bill (Jeremy Theobald) makes the mistake of following the same person twice: a clean cut, good-looking man in his twenties that is always carrying a bag. He follows the mark into a cafe, at which point the tables are turned on him: the mark gets up, sits down at Bill’s table, and looks him straight in the eye.

This is how Bill and Cobb (Alex Haw) meet. Perhaps there is something in Cobb’s mannerisms that triggers a sense of familiarity with Bill. It ends up that they aren’t all that different. Cobb also likes to get to know people. He breaks into apartments and homes not only to fence valuables, but to violate sentimental keepsakes.

You see, according to Cobb, everyone has a box. Sometimes it’s a fancy deal, most times it’s just a cardboard shoe box. But it always holds little, seemingly unrelated, odds and ends that delve deeply into who a person is. Photographs, sea horses, stones, strands of hair…

Cobb always makes sure that they know he’s been through all of these things. He says that people want these things to be found. It’s an exhibitionism that’s ingrained into all of us. Cobb just helps make it happen.

Seeing yet another opportunity to study “character,” Bill decides to tag along with Cobb in order to write a story about him. Of course, it never occurs to Bill that Cobb also has something in mind for him.

Following is the first in a series of modern black and white films that will be reviewed. Often people only associate older films with the medium. But there’s a whole sub-genre of films that have all the sensibilities of the latest thrillers. Sometimes it’s a matter of budget, and other times for aesthetics. Following falls somewhere in between the two. Directed by Christopher Nolan on a budget of $6,000, the film has all the narrative elements that fans would later recognize in Memento; the most notable being the lack of chronology.

If shown from start to finish, Following really couldn’t pass as a mystery. Nolan, however, infuses the motivations and outcomes of the characters with mystery by playing different story arcs out of order, all the while still maintaining a coherent narrative. Not easy, not by a long shot. It takes meticulous outlining and a very clear mind for what needs to be filmed ahead of time. The black and white stock creates an air of noir, providing the Following with a sophistication that would otherwise be lost with color film, given the equipment that he had to work with.

The fact that Following can hang with Memento and Insomnia is not only a testament to Nolan’s writing and directing, but also his aesthetic sense.