Brick. A contemporary noir

Brick. A contemporary film noir.

Brick, directed by Ryan Johnson is classed as a neo noir has all the quintessential characteristics that evolve around the previous film noirs. Based on the same detective themes that Dashiel Hammet has written within his detective novels.

Brick follows on with a who-dunnit themed story with the opening scene of Brendan (played by Joseph Gordon -Levitt) staring at his troubled ex girlfriend Emily (played by Emile de Ravin) laying dead at the bottom of a storm drain. Brendan chooses to hide the body which later becomes a handy tool for Brendan to use later on. Previously a few days earlier Brendan receives a phone call from Emily craving his help exclaiming that “I didn’t realise the brick was bad”.

This sets the tone and also hands the viwer to enigmas within the first 20-30mins. What is the brick and why is Emily dead. Brendan is portrayed as the ‘hard boiled’ protagonist like the private eyes of films such as double indemnity who goes out of his way to save Emily from self destruction and when he fails he sets his goals to uncover who killed her and why was she killed.

The high school set was chosen to bring a difference to the previous film noir sets. Instead of the claustrophobic meeting places and dark alleys seen in past noirs, it’s replaced with open spaced areas of California and its bright sun has cancelled out the previously dim light cities of films such as double indemnity. Though the claustrophobic meeting places haven’t been fully cancelled as this capitulates what many film noirs contained. We can see this within the film but the scene that stands out is the meeting that Brendan has with his head teacher. The office is dark with the blinds shut with light being allowed through in very small amounts with the two sharing the space with soft smoke flowing through the air. It’s as if it were imitating a detective’s office with Brendan being the victim of continuous assault of questions and demands.
Brendan’s road to finding out the murderer brings him close to many characters including the pin. A local drug dealer who runs his business from the basement of his mother’s house. His henchman tug, Dode the stoner and of course the femme fatale‘s, supposedly all still of the age of students.
The brick is later found out to be a drug, which is like heroin. This has become popular and craved for by others including the pin. A later drug run see’s that one of the bricks was taken and attenuated allowing more to be sold but of a less quality in strength. This proves to become a cause of great insecurity between tug and the pin as both believe that the other made the steal. These two are who Brendan cleverly uses to pin the death of Emily on.
The type of shots used such as the Dutch tilt and focus within the characters feet as well as high/low shots and a lot of close ups proves an obvious imitation of those used in previous film noir’s.
Clever fades are also used to give the impression of time changes while quick jump cuts causes anxiousness to specific scene’s in which Brendan wakes up after passing out.
The use of non digetic sound is very eerie and this can be felt during the opening scene of brick where Brendan’s ex is lying dead. The use of chimes is used within that scene. Also another scene that uses digetic sound really well I felt was when Brendan is running from someone that has been sent by the pin to attack Brendan. Brendan’s footsteps are hurried whilst running whilst the henchman sent; his footsteps seem slow and heavy which clearly indicates that he is the chaser.