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Anamorph (2007)

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From Time Out New York

Serial killer as artist—a dubious conceit, to be sure, but H.S. Miller’s moody, cerebral thriller breathes a bit of life into some moldy abstractions, thanks to Willem Dafoe’s expertly lifeless turn as NYPD detective Stan Aubray. The antithesis of the wisecracking noir hero, soft-spoken Stan remains haunted by the crimes of a sociopathic killer who had terrorized the city, crafting his murder scenes as gruesome tableaux, before apparently being killed by Stan. Five years later, the detective is called in to investigate what at first seems to be a series of copycat crimes.

No recent American movie has been so baldly concerned with the question of interpretation (the title is derived from anamorphosis, a visual technique that yields an image viewable only from a specific vantage point or with the use of a mirror). This leads to an annoying solipsism—compelling as it often is, Anamorph feels positively cloddish next to David Fincher’s Seven or Zodiac, with which it shares a fondness for shadowy rooms and dimly lit obsessions. It turns out that Stan, already marked as an art critic by virtue of his efforts to scour the artist-killer’s works for clues to his identity, has also become the inspiration for said works, and perhaps by the end, even a sort of unconscious coconspirator. Or at least that’s one way of looking at it.

Author: Joshua Land

Time Out New York Issue 655: April 17-23,2008

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User reviews of this film

Dudley said...

Posted on Dec 14 2010 14:36 At last a movie for the intelligent, thought provoking, and disillusioned audience of mainstream cinema. I would expect there is a lot of footage left on the cutting room floor, but I guess the guidance on just a few angle's is all the studio could cope with let alone the masses. You know those rare events, reflective moments when the credit rolls ad you find yourself still sitting there, this was one of those. Magnificent.

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Budd Greco said...

Posted on Aug 04 2009 10:53 Willian Defoe is absolutely fabulous in this movie which will have you rivited to every frame ..FOR THE FIRST HOUR....In that first hour the movie has the darkness of Blade Runner..The fear factor of Silence Of The Lambs and the mystery factor of the Sixth Senth..Perhaps that is the problem..With such a pedigree established..how can you follow on..and the trouble was that I found that a movie in which i was hanging onto for dear life was beginning to slip through my hands....Perhaps ultimatelu too much is left doen to Defoe while the feasability of the script begins to lead it inexorably into a cul-de-sac that only a Twin Peaks type of ending was ever goin to be achievable..The supporting cast..from the killer down to Defoe`s cop partner are just not given any scope at all..and as the movie slides to a climax it become apparent that threads that should be coming together to form the ultimate knot of tension have drifted so inexorably apart, that anti-climax in as inevitable as is the oh so tenuous link between the cop and the killers penultinate victim..one last desperate effort....but alas no..

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