nice film noir calligraphy, by Quim Casas

Los Angeles area, 1939. A mysterious blonde woman. A veteran detective by name Philip Marlowe. A wealthy and mean family. A murder. A drug business sheltered in some movie studios. Few truths and many lies. Doors with frosted glass. The shadow of some blinds cutting the faces of the characters. Neon lights reflected in a puddle. We are in the field of the purest film noir -in color-, without half measures: Neil Jordan With ‘Marlowe’ he has made an absolutely calligraphic film, more than correct, with atmosphere, although without the density of the classics of the genre from the 40s and 50s. Liam Neeson is a Marlowe – the eternal character created by Raymond Chandler – aged and disenchanted, more so than Robert Mitchum in ‘Bye Bye, Doll’ and ‘Private Detective’. He now quotes the other Marlowe, Christopher, and Joyce. But he does what he does best: investigate, get into trouble, and solve it.

The film adapts the novel ‘The black-eyed blonde’, written in 2014 by john banville with his other name when he signs crime novels, that of Benjamin Black. It was the Chandler estate who asked him, delighted with his series on forensic pathologist Quirke. Banville-Black wrote in Chandler’s dry prose style, and Jordan has adapted the novel, twisted like all of Chandler’s stories, with equal respect for the genre’s classic imagery.