Watching Brick

May 4, 2006

Yesterday Emily and I went to see Brick, a film which performs a remarkable feat of genre blending: noir meets and mingles with the high school film. A noir film could theoretically have any kind of setting.. a retirement village in Florida would work fine.. the audience simply has to believe that it represents a closed social system. There are a handful of elements that tend to be included in a noir film:

• A central detached protagonist who lives according to a personal code. This person is often a detective-like figure, but can also be a criminal.
• The characters inhabit a world which is ambiguous as to the nature of good and evil. The cops are not the "good guys" nor is every criminal a "bad guy."
• A viewing experience marked by plot switchbacks and sudden surprises. The aim is often to keep the viewer confused as to the motives that are pushing the characters.
• A beautiful woman that exudes sexuality, but whose motives are hidden.. who often turns out to be a femme fatale.
• An ending that lends a sense of irony to the preceding plot twists.
• The film style will be daring and emphasize fantastic angles and off-beat compositional schemes.
• Thematically there is a tendency to emphasize the inability of human beings to get a new start in life.. the past is always there to grab them.

These elements in Brick are transposed to a high school setting. There are no cops, but there is a vice-principal who is willing to cut a deal that allows the young detective to go underground and penetrate a criminal student network. The beautiful woman now becomes a high school beauty. The entire network of events and characters revolves around high school life.. and the detective's informants are a classical nerd and a high school drama queen. It is all rather clever, and the lateral transpositions from standard noir into a high school environment are bound to raise some smiles.

An interesting addition brought about by the high school setting is a semi-rhymed lingo. This is what we expect for the closed world of a high school, but it helps to build a sense of ambiguity as viewers strain to keep up with what the characters are learning. And in noir, anything that builds up confusion over the nature of character motives is good.