Neo Noir - Brick

As well as watching classic Film Noirs, we also looked at the more contemporary adaption of Film Noirs, 'Neo Noir's. It is a style often seen in modern films and is described that they "prominently utilize elements of  Film Noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in film noir of the 1940s and 1950s." This style could be suited well to us as we are making a Film Noir in modern day.

I watched a recent Neo Noir film, Brick, which was made in 2005. Although it was the directors debut and had a low budget of $475,000, the film went on to winning the 'Special Jury Prize' at the 2005 Sundance fim festival, and was later released by Focus Pictures in 2006. Most of the main characters in the film are high school students, which may immediately seem amateur and unrealistic for a Noir, but it was actually very effective, and gave a whole new spin to the Noir style. Brendan Frye is the main character, a student in a California high school, who becomes a detective, solving his ex girlfriends murder, Emily, who he still loved. With the support of his nerd friend 'Brain', he successively meets the small time drug dealers to reach the powerful teenage drug dealer 'The Pin'. Brendan gradually unravels the motives why Emily was killed and plots a revenge.

Being in colour, it is instantly more Neo Noir than classic Film Noir, but still includes many elements of classic Film Noir. For example there was cigarette smoking, urban and night settings, and effective lighting including candle light, a fireplace and a chandelier on the floor. There was also the conventional distorting objects using a mirror table. Effective editing techniques included flashbacks to help make the story understood, and blackouts, creating suspense.

 There are mainly the same key characters as in Film Noir; a male protagonist as the main character, and there is a femme fatale, Laura, who tries to seduce him, seen in the picture to the right with and expensive looking coat and accessories, with her hair and makeup neatly done. She is also seen in the film in stilettos and a red dress, classic femme fatale. However there is a character not usually seen in Noirs, the protagonists friend and aid, 'The Brain', but this works well. Also, being set in a high school, there are unconvential characters such as the vice principal, who plays an interesting part in this taking a role of  what would be a boss in the conventional Noirs. He asks for Brendan's help in the investigation over Emily. In the end of the story, Brendan ends up the victor, solving the mystery and handing in the Femme fatale to the authority (the vice principal). Usually in Film Noir, the femme fatale ends on top and the protagonist not, but the storyline of Brick makes an interesting twist to this, as although technically he has won, at the last minute Laura tells Brendan that "Emily was three months pregnant when she died" implying the baby was his. This leaves a new unsettlement to the protagonist, and a one up to the Femme Fatale.