Review of The Lady from Shanghai (1947) by Frank P — 19 Sep 2007

Craziest movie I've ever seen. Absurdity is too weak a word to describe the movie's shameless exercise in excess. Everything goes over-the-top: extravagant locations, relentless low-angle shots, and suffocating close-ups of wet-faced men and tender-faced women.

Every minute is loaded with dramatic and unexpected shifts in style. One scene can be done with an intense, extended, zooming two-shot with no background music; the next can welcome a rapid montage of faces with a disturbingly intrusive score.

With a movie like this, one never has to worship Ivan the Terrible again. The aquarium scene from Rivette's Duelle finds its origin: but Welles' staging shows whimsical deliberation that borders on pretentiousness.

Actually, the whole film lives up to its director's reputation as a arrogant fucker. The Lady From Shanghai is magnificently awful, yet absolutely indispensable. It simply needs to be seen. No one will ever have the guts and inspiration to film a climax as climatic and cinematic as the hall of mirrors sequence.