With Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” the most talked about film in a while, it’s time to revisit the writer-director’s first feature, “Following.” Or, if you’ve never seen it before, now’s a good time to finally acquaint yourself with the 1998 neo-noir. IFC Films recently began showing the black and white film on its IFC In Theaters on demand channel and will be spotlighting it for the next three months, so you won’t have trouble locating it. They’ve released a trailer for the special re-release, which we’re sharing down below (after the jump).
Fans of “Inception” should especially be interested in “Following” given that one character in the film is named Cobb, while another takes on the Kubrick-inspired moniker Daniel Lloyd (from “The Shining”). It’s been a while since I’ve seen it — like many others it first caught my attention during the “Memento” craze — but I believe it’s still my favorite of Nolan’s films. It just kept on surprising me over and over through the course of its 68 minutes. Perhaps a decade later it would hold up less for me given all the twist endings endured since, so I’m curious to hear what people seeing it for the first time now think of it.
“Following” is about a bored writer who begins following strangers around London in the hopes of being inspired. One of these people, a sharply dressed man, notices that he’s being shadowed and confronts the writer, to whom he reveals that he’s a professional burglar. Curious, the writer joins the man on his jobs, not concerned with how much trouble it might get him into. And that’s all I should tell you, because just as with “Inception,” the less you know going in the better.
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